This Brilliant Dance
by mangoaddict
Summary: AU My version of the story of the royal four on earth after the fateful day of the shooting. Will eventually be CC
1. Prologue

Prologue

Khai hissed a short breath through his teeth and looked around the room in frustration. Khivar's army had taken hold of the palace, and this secret chamber would not remain secret for long. "Ayan, where are you?" he whispered worriedly, glancing at the set of double doors. He looked down at the timepiece on his wrist. Ayan should have reached the room by now.

"How much longer, General?" Tiera asked impatiently as she too looked at the double doors. "We cannot wait forever, or all will be lost."

Khai shook his head and said, "We cannot proceed until Ayan arrives with the safety device." He looked at the contraption in front of him. It held the essence of the Royal Four, the last hope for the slowly dieing planet. He had been given the impossibly difficult task of making sure the pods arrived safely on the planet the Council had chosen.

Earth. Khai shook his head in disgust. A planet of savages who had not developed far on the evolutionary chain. They were all ruled by bestial desires, they had no gifts, they possessed no advanced technology. They only used a fraction of their brain! All that wasted capacity for knowledge and learning and this was where the Council wanted to send the Royal Four of Antar?

"General, what if Ayan does not show?" Nasedo asked coldly.

Khai and Tiera turned to look at the normally taciturn man. He was standing in the shadows, his face unusually grave. His eyes shifted about the room, and settled on the doors. "Tiera is right. We cannot hold out forever."

Khai frowned. The safety device was supposed to ensure that all four pods hatched at the same time. It would also help to protect the memories currently programmed into each hybrid's brain. Without the device, there was no guarantee that the hybrids would hatch together, or that they would remember their previous lives.

And yet…if they waited to long, there was always the chance that Khivar's troops would find the chamber and destroy the pods. And then all would be truly lost.

"Let's give Ayan a little longer to get here," Khai said slowly. "If he has not arrived within a few minutes…say ten…we will proceed without the device."

Tiera nodded, but her eyes betrayed her apprehension. Too much rested on this plan. They could not afford for anything to go wrong.

Nasedo however, made no move to acknowledge that he had even heard what Khai had said. He was staring at the pods with a strange light in his eyes. Khai watched the shape-shifter silently, unable to explain or identify the growing uneasiness in his stomach. There was something about this man that he did not quite like.

"What could be holding up Ayan?" Tiera asked nervously. She began to pace, worried. She stopped for a moment to lick her dry lips and questioned Khai, "If Ayan does not show, who will take his place as guardian to the Royal Four?"

Khia frowned. Ayan was supposed to accompany the pods to earth and make sure that they were protected from the humans until the reborn Royal Four could return home. If Ayan did not show, could he risk sending the pods alone?

"It has been ten minutes," Nasedo said softly. "We cannot wait any longer."

Tiera nodded. "I agree, General. But they have no guardian. Can we send them alone to that planet?"

Khai thought about that for a moment, then opened his mouth to answer. Before he had a chance, however, there came the sound of pounding footsteps from outside the door, and the shouts of soldiers.

"We know you are in there. Come out now and surrender!"

"We are the army of Khivar. You cannot stand against us."

"Surrender and you may live!"

Khai and Tiera exchanged glances. "Can you start the spaceship without me, Tiera?" Khai questioned urgently. Tiera nodded. "Good. I will hold off the enemy while you prepare to launch the ship. I am appointing you guardian in Ayan's place. You will go with them."

"What?' Tiera cried, her eyes widening. She glanced at Nasedo. "Wouldn't it be better if Nasedo went? He is more trained in defense."

Again Khai felt the uneasiness grow in his stomach. He shook his head. "No, I am assigning you."

Outside the room, a laser was fired at the wall. The room began to shake as the stone walls rattled. There was the sound of an explosion, and another laser was fired.

Khai reached for his weapon and turned to the doors. He knew if he left the room, he would never enter it again. He would not survive the upcoming battle, but he had to do whatever it took to protect the Royal Four. He gave Tiera one last look, then closed his eyes and focused.

His entire body began to glow and then all of a sudden he faded into what appeared to be a ghost. The molecules of his body separated, allowing him to walk through the wall and out into the hallway.

In the hall, he had a brief glimpse of several soldiers standing in front of him, their lasers raised. Then he lifted his weapon and began to fire. Smoke filled the long hallway. He smelled blood and saw the dark red stains seep across the white marble floor. Something hit him in his shoulder and he felt liquid ooze onto his closes. His grey uniform turned red.

He only lasted a few moments. He hoped it was long enough. His last conscious thought was that he still did not fully trust Nasedo.

Inside the room, Nasedo and Tiera had finished installing the commands into the controls on the spaceship. Everything was ready to go, when Nasedo turned to Tiera and said, "Do you want me to go instead of you?"

Tiera looked at him, surprised. She wanted to say yes, but something held her back. She remembered the uneasy look in Khai's eyes when she had suggested the same thing. "No…" she faltered. "I'll go." She glanced back at the doors. "If you can shape-shift into one of Khivar's soldiers, you could probably make it back to the base alright. You could tell the Council what happened, that Ayan did not show." She ran a hand through her hair and said, "I wonder why he did not make it? Do you think he got captured?"

Nasedo nodded grimly. "I have no doubt of that," he answered coolly. He smiled a chilling smile at Tiera and said, "I am the one who sent Khivar's army to him."

Tiera looked up at the man in front of her and felt panic suddenly fill her. Was he a traitor? She raised her hands, ready to fight him if need by. "You traitor," she hissed. "I'll kill you, traitor. I'll…"

Nasedo laughed. "Oh, don't bother with that," he said calmly. He flicked his wrist and Tiera crashed into the wall, dead.

Nasedo walked over to the spaceship and slipped inside. He started the controls and closed his eyes, relishing in his victory. Khai and Tiera were both dead now, and unable to stop his plans. That fool of a general had suspected him, Nasedo had seen it in the man's eyes, but he had not acted on that suspicion, and it had cost the general his life.

Nasedo wondered briefly if Khai had realized any of it before he died. It was all too convenient that Ayan had not shown up, that Khivar's army had known where and when to attack the secret chamber, that Tiera and Nasedo had been left alone.

Traitor.

Nasedo shrugged off the name. He was not a traitor, not in the way Tiera had thought. He did not work for Khivar, would never work _for_ anyone. But he had an eye out for power, and he knew he could get it through the Royal Four. Without the safety device, they would wake up not knowing anything. He would show them how to control their powers, tell them who they were and where they came from, answer their questions. He would earn their trust, and eventually they would come to rely on him completely. And then, when they did return to Antar and overthrow Khivar, the Royal Four would be puppet royalty, and he would hold the strings.

* * *

"Agent Pierce, what is it?" the FBI superior snapped. He stared at the young man in front of him. Pierce was a good agent, always on the ball, but lately he had become less reliable. He was always asking for higher ranking jobs. He did not like being at the bottom of the totem pole.

Well, get used to it, Piece. Things don't change that quickly.

"Sir, you should see the news. There have been some reports of…" Pierce didn't finish, but let the sentence hang, unsure of what to say.

"Reports of what?" The superior asked angrily. "I haven't got all day, you know."

"People thought they saw a spaceship," Pierce said, somewhat diffidently.

The superior rolled his eyes. "They always see spaceships, Pierce. It doesn't mean anything." He turned back to the papers on his desk.

"But sir, this time it may be something," Pierce protested.

The superior shrugged. Stop chasing aliens, boy. They don't exist, he thought. "Whatever you say, Agent." He continued to read over the papers, but when he realized that Pierce was still standing there, he looked up and said, "Fine, you think it is real? Go take some people and check it out."

Pierce nodded and slipped out of the room.

He hurried down the hall, excitedly. This was the chance he had been waiting for. He would find the aliens, prove they existed, and be promoted. He licked his lips in anticipation. His ambition was matched only by his greed, and today both would be satiated.

* * *

Nasedo crawled from the crashed spaceship and lay on the rocky desert ground. He did not what had gone wrong with the controls to the ship, but instead of a smooth and discreet landing he was hoping for, the ship had crashed into the ground at full speed. The force of the crash had propelled him from the ship and out into the open. Behind him, the ship crumbled until it formed a cave like enclosure around the pods and their inhabitants.

Nasedo struggled to his feet and took a few faltering steps towards the cave. Blood covered his uniform. Each step caused great waves of pain to course through his body. He placed his hands on the rock wall of the now completely closed cave and tried to tear the rock away. It would not budge.

Perhaps Khai anticipated me after all, he thought bitterly. The rock was clearly some form of safety device that the ship had enacted after the crash. He had not been aware that the ship would do that, and he had believed he knew the complete design of the ship. He was wrong.

He suddenly stopped and felt a some sixth sense warning him. He spun around to face his new foe, but he only had time to register three men dressed in black standing behind him before something hit him in the shoulder and he slipped into unconsciousness.

He would wake up twelve hours later in a completely white room.

* * *

The dark haired boy was the first to break free of the pod. He pulled himself out of the slimy gel-liquid and looked around the cave. It was dark, but the pods gave off an eerie light. He took a few unsure steps towards one side of the cave and instinctively raised a hand. The wall fell away and he blinked in the bright white light of the desert.

A sound from behind him caused him to turn around, and he saw that a girl with long blonde hair was crawling from her pod. She seemed familiar, but he couldn't quite place her. He couldn't quite place anything. He extended a hand to her, and she took it.

A third child came out of the pod. He had sandy brown hair and brooding eyes. He stared at the other two, but made no move to join them. The girl extended her free hand towards him, but he refused. The three were silent for a moment, then the first boy and the girl walked out of the cave.

The second boy looked around for a moment, then he too began to walk towards the light of the desert. He paused for a moment and stared back at the pods. The fourth pod still had the form of a girl in it, a little girl with blonde curly hair. She had not yet crawled from her pod. The boy stared at her, then turned away and stepped out into the desert.

Only a few minutes after the second boy had left, the blonde girl opened her eyes and struggled from the pod. She looked around the empty cave and shivered. She was all alone. Where had the others gone? Where they alright? Had they been hurt? She felt a strange emotion inside her, and thought for a moment before deciding it was worry.

There was nothing for her to do but leave. She walked out into the desert and looked around. In the distance she could see a car driving away. A little girl and a little boy sat in the back seat, their noses pressed up against the glass. She watched the car disappear, the turned and started walking in the other direction.

Behind her, the cave sealed shut.


	2. New Beginnings

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's Note: All four aliens live in Roswell. Michael, Isabel, and Max are friends. Tess is part of the popular clique. She lives with the Valenti's, but her last name is Harding...it will all make sense in one of the later chapters. This is not a rebel fic, but Tess is my favorite character, so I didn't make her evil (although it may seem like that at first).

Chapter One: New Beginnings

"Don't look now, but Max Evans is staring at you again."

Liz Parker looked up at Maria DeLuca in surprise, then turned to steal a quick look over at Max. Sure enough, a set a dark brown eyes were focused solely on her, watching as she walked back and forth across the diner. She smiled at Maria and shrugged. "Maybe he is just hungry," she suggested softly. "He is in my section."

"He's always in your section," Maria pointed out. "It's almost as though he sits there on purpose," she laughed, winking at Liz.

Liz frowned at that comment and said, "I'm already dating, Maria. And I have no intention of cheating on Kyle."

"But you aren't sure you want to keep dating him either," Maria argued back. "Have a little fun. You're sixteen, it isn't like you are married to Kyle."

Liz contemplated Maria's comment as she glanced over at Max's table. Sitting across from Max, his brooding eyes focused on the menu in front of him, was Max's best friend, Michael Gurin. He glanced up at Liz for a moment, and the two locked eyes. Liz flinched, and turned away. There was always something in Michael's eyes that bothered her. Something she couldn't quite identify, but made her nervous nonetheless.

"I think they are out of Tabasco sauce again," Maria commented. She straightened the antennas on her headband and sighed. "This is such a ridiculous waitress outfit. I feel like a freak."

Liz smiled sympathetically at her friend and glanced over at Max's table again. Sure enough, the two Tabasco sauce bottles on the table were almost empty. "How do they go through that stuff so quickly?"

"Beats me," Maria replied, shrugging carelessly. "Some people just have weird taste."

"Hey, calm down!"

Liz and Maria both spun around at the shout. Along with everyone else in the diner, they trained their eyes on the two men standing near the door. The men where clearly arguing over something, and one of them had suddenly drawn a gun. He was waving it about excitedly, while the other customers began to shout and run for cover.

It happened in a blur. The first man lunged at the second one, his hands closing over the gun. There was the sound of a shot, the crash of the two men falling to the floor, then silence.

It wasn't until Liz looked down at her uniform and saw the red stain spreading across her stomach that she realized she had been shot. A moment later she crumpled to the floor.

The pain pierced through her like a white-hot poker. All around her, Liz could hear the sounds of voices yelling, chairs scraping across the linoleum floor, doors opening and closing, and the thud of footsteps. Then a new sound cut across all the others, a gentle voice, coaxing her to open her eyes.

"Come on, Liz, look at me," the voice begged. "I need you to look at me."

Liz opened her eyes and stared up at the deep brown eyes of the person leaning over her. She was vaguely aware of a hand on her abdomen, then felt a warmth growing in her stomach. The pain receded and she blinked once or twice. She glanced down at her stomach and realized the bullet wound was gone.

She had been healed.

She glanced up in shock at the person who was still hunched over her. He was looking at her with fear and worry in her eyes. "Please, don't tell anyone," he whispered. Turning away from her, he grabbed a ketchup bottle and smashed it, then poured the ketchup on her uniform. "You broke the bottle when you fell," he continued, pleading.

Liz nodded dumbly and watched as Max Evans stood up and took a few steps away from her. Behind him, Michael was staring at her, his eyes cold and unreadable as ever, but with something she had never seen in them before.

Fear.

Then the two turned and ran from the diner, and Liz looked around her to see Maria and her parents running to her side.

* * *

"You what?" 

Isabel Evans could scarcely believe what her brother had just told her. She closed her eyes shook her head, hoping she would open her eyes and find out this was all a joke. But she knew Max. She knew he would never joke about something like that.

"Izzy," Max started, but Isabel cut him off.

"What the hell where you thinking?"

Max sighed and looked down at his sandwich. They were sitting outside, eating lunch. It had seemed the best place to tell Isabel, because she would never do anything stupid in public. She wouldn't risk loosing control of her powers.

"He wasn't thinking," Michael said softly, gruffly. "At least, not with his mind…"

"Don't be crude," Max snapped while Michael smirked. He turned to Isabel. "She was shot, Izzy. I couldn't just let her die."

"You could have called for an ambulance. You know, like a normal person would," Isabel shot back. She took a deep breath and said, "I hope you still think this was worthwhile when we end up as government experiments."

"That's not going to happen," Max said quickly. "I won't let it happen."

Michael rolled his eyes and hissed, "Well, the mighty one has spoken. Let us all be reassured that Great Max will save us."

"Stuff it, Michael," Max replied heatedly.

Michael opened his mouth to retort, but Isabel laid a hand on her arm and shook her head. "Let it go, Michael. We can't change the past."

"That's it? You aren't angry at him anymore?" Michael asked incredulously. Max looked at his sister hopefully.

Isabel smiled mischievously and replied, "Oh, I am angry. But I am also feeling rather sympathetic." She turned and looked across the quad. Exiting the building, the 'popular clique' was talking and laughing. Standing in the middle of the group, her blonde curls bouncing around her head as she flirted with one of the boys, was the fourth alien. As though sensing the three pairs of eyes on her, Tess Harding turned and glanced out across the quad. Brilliant blue eyes met softer brown ones, and the blue eyes narrowed in concern and suspicion.

Isabel turned back to Max. "After all, _someone_ has to tell Tess."

Max swallowed nervously, his eyes still fixed on the fourth alien. That was a conversation he particularly dreaded.

* * *

"Liz, come on, tell me what happened," Maria demanded angrily as she hurried after her best friend. School had just ended, and the girls were rushing off to work. 

"Nothing happened, Maria," Liz replied patiently. She turned to face the other girl and said, "I knocked over ketchup when I fell."

"Lizzy, you are horrible at lying," Maria replied pointedly. "I can see everyone of your teeth, including the wisdom teeth, when you lie to me."

Liz sighed and shook her head. "Just drop it, Maria. You're just paranoid. Nothing happened, and I am fine. Can't we just be happy that I didn't get shot?"

"I saw you get shot!" Maria hissed. She lowered her voice and said, "I saw you fall. You didn't fall anywhere near the ketchup bottle. I'm not stupid."

Liz sighed and bit her lip. Maria was, unfortunately, not stupid at all. Flaky, but intelligent and perceptive enough to know that Liz was keeping a secret. And that was not good.

"Liz?"

Liz turned and glanced at the boy who had just joined her. She smiled briefly and said, "Hey, Kyle." She tilted her head to the side and allowed her boyfriend to place a kiss on her cheek. "Don't you have football practice?"

Kyle nodded and said, "Yeah, but I had to deliver a message to you first. I'm glad I caught you or I would have had to go all the way to the Crashdown."

"What's up?" Liz asked.

"My Dad wants to talk to you this afternoon. Probably about the shooting. Are you okay, by the way? I know it must have freaked you out. I wanted to come by earlier, but I wasn't sure you would want more attention. Your parents were all upset."

Liz swallowed nervously and said, "Your father wants to talk to me?"

"Yeah," Kyle replied, oblivious to the sudden paleness of Liz's face or the hesitation in her voice. "This afternoon, if you can. I'll call you after practice, okay?"

Liz nodded dumbly and watched as Kyle hurried off. She turned to Maria and shrugged. "Guess I should go see the Sheriff," she said, her voice wavering. She smiled briefly, said, "See you at work after," and took off towards the direction of the Sheriff's office.

Maria stared at Liz, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. She was not a fool, and she knew that her best friend was concealing something. She sighed and shook her head, then turned and walked towards work. She would have to talk to Liz later.

* * *

Sheriff Valenti stared at the girl in front of him. She was sitting nervously, her arms wrapped around her chest. Her straight brown hair fell in front of her eyes, and gaze was focused on the floor. 

"Elizabeth Parker," Valenti said slowly. "Could you please tell me, in your own words, what happened yesterday."

Liz glanced at the father of the man she was dating, then turned and looked at the window. It was the middle of the day and the bright yellow sun beat unforgivingly down on the small desert town. Liz pushed a few strands out of her hair and, still looking out the window, replied, "Maria and I were talking, and two men suddenly started shouting. We both turned in time to see one of the men waving a gun, then there was a struggle, and the gun went off. I…" Liz's voice faded and she grasped for words.

"Yes?" Valenti prompted. "What happened next?"

Liz turned to look at him and took a breath. Composing herself, she shrugged and said, "Not much. I got scared and fell backward. I hit some ketchup I guess, because a bottle broke and spilled all over me. Maria saw it and started freaking out, and so did my parents when they came. But it was nothing."

"Where did the bottle come from?"

"Uh…it was next to me on the counter, I think," Liz replied, somewhat hesitantly.

Valenti nodded and leaned backward in his seat. He surveyed Liz for a moment, then said, "Well, I am going to want to see your dress. The uniform you were wearing when you fell."

Liz swallowed and asked, "Why? What does it have to do with catching those men?"

Valenti ignored her and continued, "And of course, I will have to hear the testimony of Maria and your parents." He stood up and walked around the desk to stare at Liz. "You know, Liz, if there is anything else you want to tell me, anything at all…"

Liz shook her head quickly and replied, 'There is nothing. That's the whole story."

Valenti hesitated, then nodded and said, "A few eye witnesses claim that someone ran up to you before Maria and your parents got there. A Max Evans and Michael Guerin. Is that true?"

Liz crossed her arms over her chest again and leaned back in the seat. She bit her lip and shrugged. "I don't really remember, it is all a blur."

"Do you know where the bullet went when the gun went off?" Valenti asked, switching subjects. "Several eyewitnesses claim it flew in your direction, but we can't seem to find it anywhere." He glanced down at his desk as he spoke, shuffling papers, but still regarding Liz through his peripheral vision.

Liz squirmed slightly and said, "No…I don't know. I didn't see."

Valenti looked up at Liz and weighed his options. The girl was talented in many different areas, but lying was not one of them. Her face was flushed and she kept shifting in her seat. She refused to meet his eyes for more than a moment or two at a time. She was lying to him about something, and given her reaction to his mentioning Max and Michael, Valenti felt he had a pretty good idea what she was not telling him.

And yet, he liked the girl. He found it difficult to believe that she was mixed up in anything dangerous. She was a smart girl, dedicated to her school work, with a bright future ahead of her. Finally, he decided to take the kinder route. She would come to him with the truth in time.

"Liz," Valenti said gently, placing a hand on her shoulder, "You know you can tell me anything, anytime. You can trust me." He walked over to the door and held it open. "Just keep that in mind, alright?"

Liz nodded and hurried from the room.

Valenti stood for a moment in silence, then ran a hand through his hair. "What are you doing?" he whispered to himself. "It was just a normal shooting. Do you want to end up like your father?"

His father, a respectable sheriff, had started hunting aliens midway through his career. He had refused to listen to others who had told him aliens did not exist, and that had cost him his job, his respect, and ultimately his family. As a child, watching his father slowly destroy everything in his mad hunt for aliens, Valenti had promised himself that he would never do that. He would never make an obsession more important than his family.

He wasn't even sure that he believed in aliens, but part of him wanted to. Part of him wanted desperately to believe that his father was not the raving lunatic that the world believed him to be. The other part, the tiny voice in his head that sounded awfully like his mother's, would remind him to think of Kyle and Tess. Kyle had already lost a mother, and Tess had lost a previous set of parents, they did not need to lose more.

The only thing that Valenti knew for certain, was that Liz Parker had been lying to him, and he was determined to find out why.

* * *

Tess Harding stood in front of the mirror, carefully removing the eye shadow from her eyelids. Her blonde hair was swept up and out of her face. She was wearing a loose robe over her silk nightgown. She smiled softly to herself, knowing that even in nightclothes she managed to look amazing. 

There was a sharp tap on the bedroom window and she turned around. Max was standing there, waiting for her to open the window. She stared at him for a moment, then waved her hand and the window latch sprung open. Max opened the window, and slipped into the room.

"Hey," he greeted her.

Tess held his gaze for a moment, and Max had the uncomfortable feeling that she could see right into his soul. He shifted and looked down at the floor and Tess demanded, "What did you do?"

"What makes you think I did something?" Max asked quickly.

Tess rolled her eyes at him and gestured to the alarm clock on her bed stand. "It's almost midnight, Max. Something is obviously wrong, and since you are looking like a prisoner on death row, I'm going to guess you did something stupid."

"Yes," Max whispered. "Yes, I did."

"What?" Tess asked coldly. Her expression remained neutral, but inside she was panicking. During lunch today, she had felt the other three aliens staring at her, and when she had turned to look at them, she had seen the fear and worry radiating off of them in great waves. Something was wrong.

"There was a shooting at the Crashdown," Max began. "Did you hear about it?"

Tess walked over to her bed and sat down. "Max, Jim is the Sheriff. Of course I heard about it. It is all he has been talking about the entire day." She ran a hand through her hair and said sarcastically, "It's exciting. We don't get many violent crimes around here."

"I was there. Michael and I were there," Max said quietly. He swallowed and glanced over at Tess, then quickly stared back down at the floor.

"Are you alright?" Tess asked worriedly. "Did you or Michael get hurt?"

"No…" Max sighed and walked over to the window. He stood with his back to Tess, staring out at the night sky. "Liz did, though. She got shot."

Tess accepted this information in silence. She thought about it for a moment, then said, "Liz Parker? The love of your life who doesn't even know you exist? The crush of yours who is currently dating Kyle?"

Max nodded.

"She was fine today, Max," Tess said slowly. "She was in school, and she didn't say anything about being shot…" Her eyes widened in fear. "What the hell did you do?"

There was no need for Max to answer. Tess knew exactly what he had done, and Max knew that she knew. But he answered anyway. "I healed her."

"You what!" Tess hissed between clenched teeth. "Why?"

"She had been shot! What would you have wanted me to do? Let her die?" Max shot back, exasperated.

Tess got off the bed and walked over to Max. She grabbed his shoulder and spun him around so that he was facing her. Her anger barely contained, she replied in a dangerously calm voice, "And so you decided to risk our lives to save hers? Max, do you have any idea what could happen?"

"Of course!" Max replied. He pushed Tess away and stepped into the middle of the bedroom. "Of course I know. But…"

Tess held up a hand to stop him. For a moment, the two stared at each other in silence, then Tess said, "What did you tell Liz?"

"I haven't talked to her yet," Max replied.

Tess nodded and asked, "What are you going to tell her?"

"What can I tell her besides the truth?" Max asked softly.

"No!" Tess protested. "No, you can't." She turned away from Max again and grabbed a pillow from her bed. Throwing it at the wall in frustration, she spun around and hissed, "We had an agreement that we would never use our powers in public. We would never tell anyone our secret without discussing it with the others first. What happened to that?"

Max sat down on Tess' bed and wrapped his arms around his chest. "I can't change what I did, Tess. And I don't even know if I would want to. Right now we have more important things to worry about."

"Like what?" Tess asked coldly.

"Jim. What if he gets suspicious?" Max licked his suddenly dry lips and said, "We can't let that happen. You live here, you can figure out what he knows. Then you can…" he stopped and shrugged. "You know, do your mind thing…"

Tess' eyes narrowed into slits of blue ice. "You want me to work against my own family? You want me to destroy evidence, sabotage my father's case?"

"You've never considered Kyle of Jim family before. Why start now?" Max asked nastily.

"Just because I don't have the perfect family, just because we don't sit around and share our feelings every three seconds like you Evans do, doesn't mean that I don't care about them," Tess replied icily. Her rage was gone now, replaced by a simmering anger. Max stared at her in apprehension, having learned a long time ago that the quieter she got, the angrier she was, and the more dangerous she could be.

There was an uneasy silence, then Max whispered, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. But, Tess, we are your family. Michael, Isabel, and I. And right now, we need your help."

Tess nodded slowly and said, "Fine." She got up and walked back over to the mirror. "You should go, it's getting late." Her tone left Max in little doubt that this conversation was far from over.

Max nodded and left the room, slipping out through the window.

Once he was gone, Tess turned and walked over to her desk. She reached into the second drawer and pushed through the contents until she found what she was looking for. Buried among the lose papers and magazines, was a small picture. It showed Tess, Max, Isabel, and Michael when they were children, The four of them were standing out in the desert, each holding each others hands.

Tess remembered that they had been seven or eight in the picture. It had been only a few months after she had come to Roswell, after the Hardings had… She pushed the thought away, not wanting to dwell on the untimely demise of her first foster parents.

She glanced at the picture again. Their class had gone out on a picnic, and the four of them had spent the entire time together. It had taken place only a little after they had discovered that they each shared gifts, and since they felt so different from everyone else, they had naturally sought comfort in the company of each other.

The teacher had taken the picture, thinking they looked cute. The teacher had given the picture to Jim later and he had framed it and put it in the living room for a while. But it had eventually been replaced with pictures of the cheerleaders and jocks that Kyle and Tess hung out with now.

As far as Tess knew, it was the only picture of the four of them together. None of the other three had a copy of it, so she was the only one who had any proof that they had once been friends. But as the years had passed, they had grown apart, and now nothing remained of that friendship but bitter words and broken promises.

Tess sighed and dropped the picture back into the drawer. She covered it with old homework assignments and notes from last years classes. It brought up too many painful memories that she did not want to think about. Better to let the past stay buried.

Except that it never did.

"_How did you do that?" eight-year-old Max asked, his eyes wide. Tess had just used her gifts to blow up a glass vase. Isabel and Max stared at the vase, their mouths open. Michael stood to one side, watching Tess in shock._

_Tess shrugged and waved her hand at the broken glass. It reformed into the vase again. "I just do it," Tess replied. "Can't you do it too?"_

"_Yes, but we can't control it so good like that," Isabel replied. She glanced over at Max and continued, "Max says other people, like Mommy and Daddy, can't do it at all."_

_Michael nodded and said, "Hank can't do nothing like that. We're different."_

"_I don't want to be different," Isabel said softly, her voice filled with sorrow. "I want to be like everybody else."_

"_You're like me," Tess said comfortingly. "We're all the same, the four of us are."_

"_Yeah," Max agreed, speaking up. "We're like family."_

Tess walked back over to the mirror and stared at herself in it. It had been a long time since she had blown up the glass vase in the Evans house, since she had first shown her gifts to the other three. She had known when she first came to Roswell that those three were like her. She did not know how she knew it, but she had known and it had come as a relief when, three months after moving, she finally could confront them about it.

And Max had said they were family. Somehow, everything had seemed okay at the time. It didn't matter that she had no clue who she was or where she was from. It didn't matter that bad people might come after her because of what she could do. All that mattered, was that she fit in. She had a place that she belonged, and people that she could call family. She thought that everything would be okay now because Max Evans had declared that she was one of the group.

Looking back, Tess couldn't help but laugh bitterly at how naïve she had been.

* * *

Agent Pierce read the report slowly, frowning at the words. A shooting in a town diner would usually never show up on his radar, but he had asked his staff to keep an eye out for any unusual activity in Roswell. Where there is one alien, there could be more. 

He placed the report on the table and reached for his mug of coffee. It had been several years since his last trip to Roswell. In those years, he had quickly rose through the FBI, now heading the prestigious, and secret, special unit of the FBI. He had a reputation for being cunning, resourceful, and cutthroat.

Pierce took a sip of coffee and flipped through the report. He paused at the last page. The Sheriff's report was brief and concise. A brawl, a shooting, panic, end of story. Except…

Except no bullet had been found.

Pierce had always had a knack for knowing when something wasn't quite right. And now, as he read the papers, he felt the same feeling he had all those years ago when the spaceship had crashed. He instinctively knew that the shooting had not been as simple and straightforward as it seemed.

Pierce sighed and turned his thoughts towards the alien he had captured in the desert outside of Roswell several years ago. The man who had appeared human on the outside, but had been so alien on the inside. Different bone structure, different blood, different internal organs…

He was still here, in the white room, the subject of several experiments. The special unit had been able to get little out of him. Pierce expected that part of it might be due to the fact that the alien did not appear to speak English. The experiments had continued nonetheless, and the FBI was looking for the most effective way to fight the invaders. What caused them the most pain, what killed them fastest, what caused them fear? If these aliens were a threat to humans, they had to be stopped.

All this time, however, Pierce had been sure that there were more aliens somewhere in the world who had arrived with the captive. And perhaps they would reveal more information.

Pierce finished his coffee in a single draught, and placed the cup on the desk. Perhaps it was time to send someone to Roswell.

* * *

Next Chapter: Twenty Questions 

Due: Thursday, 10/27


	3. Twenty Questions

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Thank you to all who reviewed! Again, just to reiterate, this is starting out UC and will end up CC (except I'm not putting Kyle and Tess together since they are siblings). It might take a while to get to CC, but I promise it will get there. Also, for everyone who likes Tess, she is my favorite character, so don't be turned off by the way she is portrayed in the first several chapters. She isn't evil, and a lot about her pas,t and why she is the way she is, will be explained later on.

Please R&R.

Chapter Two: Twenty Questions

Maria leaned back against the doorframe and watched as Alex Whitman typed away at his computer. The sun was slowly making its way through the morning sky, casting a few rays of light in through the window. They fell on Alex and his computer, illuminating the two in the otherwise dimly lit room.

Maria ran a hand through her hair somewhat nervously and took a deep breath, preparing herself for what she was about to say. "Alex?"

Alex jumped. He spun around and looked over at Maria. "Maria. How long have you been there?" he demanded, startled.

Maria flashed him a quick grin and replied, "Just a few moments. Your mother let me in downstairs and told me just to come on up."

"Oh." Alex stood up and grabbed his backpack. "Shall we start of to school then, dear lady?" he asked, using his best old-fashioned gentleman's voice.

Maria laughed, then shook her head and said, "I need to talk to you about something first."

Alex gestured for her to sit down on his bed. Then he leaned back in his chair and stared at her with scrutinizing eyes. "What's up?"

Maria shoved a few pillows aside to make room for herself at the end of the bed. She sat down and folded her arms over her chest, staring at Alex. After a momentary silence, she said, "It's about Liz."

"What about her? What's wrong?" Alex asked quickly, concern jumping into his eyes.

"At the Crashdown…" Maria glanced over at the open door and sighed. She got up and walked over to shut it, then turned to Alex. "Something happened at the Crashdown, and she won't tell me what it is. She said she fell and broke a ketchup bottle on herself, but she wasn't anywhere near the ketchup. And I saw the bullet hit her, I know I did!"

Alex nodded slowly and said, "So…what you are saying is that Liz got shot and then somehow miraculously healed herself?"

"Well, when you put it that way, it sounds ridiculous," Maria snapped.

"Maybe because it is ridiculous," Alex replied calmly. Maria glared at him, but he simply shrugged and said, "Maria, did it occur to you that maybe Liz is acting funny because she almost got shot? That is enough to make anyone jumpy."

"I know," Maria admitted. "But I also know what I saw. And I know Liz. She is keeping something from me, and I am worried. I'm her best friend, she should be able to tell me anything and everything."

"You don't tell her anything and everything," Alex pointed out mildly.

"I do too!" Maria argued.

Alex got up and walked over to the other girl. He placed both his hands on her hips, and leaned in to kiss her. They stayed that way for a moment, then Alex broke the kiss, leaned back, and said, "Did you tell her about us?"

Maria sighed, admitting defeat on the point, and pushed Alex away. "That's different, Alex. We aren't a big deal."

"Thanks," Alex commented dryly.

Maria's eyes went wide with the sudden realization of what she had said. "I didn't mean it like that. You know I didn't mean it like that."

Alex laughed and waved Maria's words aside. "Relax. I know what you meant. You and I are just casually dating." His tone grew serious again and he said, "But really, I think you are drawing the wrong conclusions from this whole shooting business. Liz is just jumpy because she almost got shot."

"I suppose," Maria relented, still unconvinced. She walked back over to the bed and sat down. Alex hesitated for a moment, then he sat down next to her.

"I'll talk to her if you like," Alex offered.

Maria flashed him a grateful smile. "Thanks." She gave Alex a kiss on the cheek, then stood up. "School?"

"Yeah," Alex replied. He pulled his backpack on, and the two of them made their way out of the room and down the stairs.

* * *

"Max Evans and Liz Parker, you to will be partners in this lab," the biology teacher announced. He continued reading down the list of partners, while Liz and Max exchanged brief glances. Across the room, Isabel narrowed her eyes in concern at Max, sending an unspoken warning not to reveal any information to Liz until the four aliens had a chance to properly discuss the issue at hand. 

"So…" Liz looked at the microscope and frowned. "One of us needs to donate a sample of tissue from the inside of our check, and we are supposed to compare those cells to the cells from the epidermis of an onion."

"I'll do the onion stuff," Max said quickly, reaching for the slide.

Liz hesitated, then handed him the slide and the onion skin. She reached for a toothpick to prepare a slide with her own cells. After a moment of silence, both finished the task. Liz placed the onion cell under the microscope and stared at it.

"Okay…so you can see the distinct cell walls here. Each of the cells takes the shape of a rectangle. The cytoplasm is fairly clear, as is the nucleus…"

Max zoned out, staring around the room. After a moment, he turned back to Liz and began chewing on the eraser of his pencil while waiting for her to finish. When Liz finally stepped back from the microscope, Max dropped his pencil and took her place. He peered through the lens for a moment, eyeing the onion cells, then shrugged and turned to Liz.

Liz handed him the slide with her human cells on it, and he placed it under the microscope. Max stared at it for a moment, until Liz prompted him.

"What do you see?"

"Uh…cells?"

"Max," Liz said with exasperation, "we are supposed to compare the similarities and differences between the two cells. I already laid out for you all the major attributes of the onion cell, all you have to do is decide whether or not they hold for the human cells as well."

Max shifted uncomfortably, and glanced around the room. As his gaze wandered over the other students, Liz glanced back at the pencil he had been chewing on earlier. Making sure that Max's eyes were focused elsewhere, Liz carefully ran the end of the eraser over an extra slide, preparing a sample. She covered it with a coverslip and turned back to Max.

"Here, let me do it," she said, pushing him out of the way. Max stepped away from the microscope, and she leaned over to stare at the cells. Then she tossed the first slide back on to the table and took the slide she had just made of Max's cells. She put it under the microscope and focused the image.

"What is that?" Max asked. "I thought we only needed two slides."

"We do. This is just another sample," Liz replied as she finally finished focusing. She stared at the cells in the microscope in shock, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. Whatever they were, they weren't human.

"Liz?"

Liz pulled back and glanced over at Max. "Here, take a look at these," she said calmly.

Max stepped over to the microscope. "So, these are just another sample of your cells?" he asked as he lowered his face towards the eyepiece.

"No," Liz said softly. "They're yours."

Just as she said the words, Max saw the set of cells on the side. He started and jumped backwards, knocking a box of clean slides to the floor. A beaker overturned, shattered, and sent a rush of water down the bench and onto the floor.

"Mr. Evans?" the teacher asked. "Are you alright?"

"Just…migraine. Can I go to the nurse?" Max asked slowly. He stared at Liz for a long time, then glanced over at the pencil he had been chewing. He reached for the pencil, snapped it in half, and pocketed it. He took the slide off of the microscope and pocketed it as well.

"Yes, you may go," the teacher said.

Max nodded and hurried from the room, his face pale and drawn. Isabel watched him leave the room, concern in her eyes, then she turned and looked at Liz. Liz stared back at her, defiantly meeting the other girl's arresting stare.

* * *

Liz shoved the door to the band room open and stepped inside. She stared at Max, who was sitting on the other side of the room, gazing out the window. "You missed the rest of class," she commented softly, making her way across the room. 

"I think I was there for the important part," Max replied bitterly. He turned and looked up at Liz.

Liz swallowed and asked, "What are you?"

Max hesitated, then shook his head and said, "I can't tell you anything, Liz. Look, I saved your life yesterday. Can't we just leave it at that and forget about it?"

"Forget about it?" Liz demanded. "Max, you did something to me! I have a right to know what it was." She grabbed a chair and pulled it across the floor so it was directly in front of the Max. Then she sat down and continued, "And I am not leaving until I get some answers."

"I can't tell you," Max repeated. "You have no idea how much danger this puts all of us in."

"All of us?" Liz questioned. "Who else is in on this, Max? Who else knows?"

Max said nothing, and Liz sighed. She turned and looked out of the window as well, staring out at the parking lot. She licked her lips and shook her head, unsure of what to say or do. Who was Max Evans, and why was he so scared?

"I can help you. I can protect your secret, if you just trust me, Max," Liz whispered. "If you don't tell me the truth, then I can't guarantee that I'll be able to keep everything away from whoever it is you are scared of."

Max stiffened. "And if I don't tell you anything?" he questioned softly, his voice venomous. "What then? Will you run to your boyfriend's father and tell him everything that happened?"

"I didn't mean it like that, Max," Liz replied. "I'm not trying to blackmail you. I just want to understand what happened."

Max sighed. She looked so sincere, like she really wanted to help. He swallowed, and looked away, then admitted slowly, "I'm not from around here."

"Where are you from?" Liz pressed.

Max pointed to the sky and watched as realization dawned on Liz's features.

"Oh my God," Liz breathed, jumping up in shock. The sudden movement caused her chair to tip back onto the two back legs. It hovered there for a moment before crashing to the ground.

"Liz…" Max said quickly, as he to got up. "Please…you can't tell anyone. You have no idea what will happen if you do."

Liz nodded dumbly, trying to comprehend what Max had just told her. "You…you're an alien?"

"Well, I prefer the term not of this earth," Max retorted quickly, smiling. His grin faltered for a moment, and he sighed and said, "Sorry, probably not the best time to joke about this, huh? Yeah…I'm an alien."

"Oh…" Liz blinked and shook her head. "Who else?"

"What?" Max asked slowly. "What do you mean, who else?"

"You said 'you have no idea how much danger this puts all of us in.' Who else would be in danger besides you?"

"Michael and Isabel…" Max admitted reluctantly.

Liz nodded. "Okay, well, I guess I really should have been able to figure that one out on my own. It makes sense and all."

"…and Tess."

Liz's head snapped up, shocked. "Tess? Tess Harding? The Ice Queen of Roswell High? She's one of you?"

Max grinned slightly at the description of Tess and nodded. "Yes, she is." He looked back at the window, and out over the parking lot. "Liz, you can't tell anyone. You have no idea what will happen to us if you do, and trust me, it isn't anything good."

Liz looked at Max for a long time, then nodded slowly. "I won't tell anyone, Max. I give you my word." She looked up at him, her doe eyes full of sincerity. "You can trust me."

* * *

"Michael Gurin, please, have a seat," Sheriff Valenti said, pointing to the chair in front of his desk. He put down his paperwork and watched as Michael walked over to the chair and sat down, slumping backward and staring at Valenti through suspicion-filled eyes. 

"What did you want to talk to me about?"

"I just wanted to ask you a few questions about the shooting the other day. Nothing to be worried about," Valenti replied, trying to sound reassuring.

Michael's eyes narrowed. "I don't know anything."

"You where there, weren't you?" Valenti asked. He looked down at the pad in front of him and frowned, deciding to take a wild chance. "Liz Parker said she spoke to you briefly. You ran up to her to make sure she was alright after the shooting?"

Michael hesitated, then nodded. "Yes. She got scared and fell backward. Knocked ketchup onto herself. I ran up to see if she was okay."

And yet Liz had said that everything was a blur, and she did not remember whether or not Max and Michael were there. The stories didn't match, which meant someone was lying. Or they were both lying… Valenti rubbed his eyes and thought about his next question.

"Where you alone?" Valenti asked.

"What do you mean?" Michael questioned, his eyebrows coming together in confusion. "The diner was crowded, there were several other people there."

"I meant when you went to check on Liz. Did anyone else go with you?"

Michael hesitated, then said, "There were a lot of people there. I think several of them rushed over to see if Liz was okay. Maria DeLuca did, and Liz' parents…I don't remember anything else."

"What about Max Evans?"

Michael shrugged and said, "Max and I were in there together. He must have run over to Liz when I did, but I don't remember."

Valenti nodded and shifted tactics. "Do you go the Crashdown a lot?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Michael demanded.

"I thought perhaps you might have recognized the shooters if you…" Valenti began, but Michael cut him off.

"Max, Isabel, and I go there a lot. But no, I didn't recognize the shooters. They were probably tourists. Look, I don't know anything else. Can I go? My foster father will wonder where I am if I don't come home right after school."

"Just one more question," Valenti replied quickly. "Where did the bullet go?"

"What?" Michael demanded, worry evident on his face. "What bullet?"

"The one that left the gun when the gun went off. You said Liz got scared, so I assume that the bullet flew close to her. But we didn't find a bullet hole anywhere around her, so I wondered if you had seen where it went."

"No, I didn't see," Michael answered, his voice hostile, his skin pale.

"Okay, that is all," Valenti replied. He nodded to the door, dismissing Michael. Michael got up and left the room quickly, and Valenti turned back to the papers in front of him. He knew that Michael had been lying, but about what…? Were he and Liz lying about the same thing, or where they both protecting their own different secrets?

* * *

"Izzy, can you set the table for dinner please?" Mrs. Evans asked as she bustled about the kitchen. She paused at the stove and tasted a spoonful of the soup. It needed more salt. 

Isabel watched her mother hunt for the salt in the spice cupboard, then turned and walked over to the table. "Is it just the four of us, Mom?"

"Yes, dear," Mrs. Evans replied distractedly. She salted the soup and mixed it again, then glanced over at her daughter. "Where were you this afternoon? You were late getting home from school."

"I was at the library," Isabel replied, her back to her mother. Her face turned a slight shade of pink as she guiltily licked her lips and continued, "I'm sorry I didn't call. Michael and I were just working on a project for school."

Mrs. Evans pursed her lips and replied sharply, "Really? Working on a project?"

Isabel turned and frowned at her mother. "Of course," she answered. "What else would I be doing with Michael?"

"You spend a lot of time with him," Mrs. Evans answered casually. "I was young once, you know. I know what 'working in the library' really means." She pulled a lasagna from the oven and turned the burner under the soup off.

"Wow, thanks for that mental image," Isabel replied sarcastically. "I really don't want to hear about what you did in the library as a teenager, Mom." She shook her head and turned back to the table. "Michael and I are just friends. He's like…my brother."

"If you say so," Mrs. Evans replied reluctantly, still not entirely convinced. "He's seems like a nice boy though…"

"Mom!" Isabel snapped, shocked. "Me and Michael are just…eww!"

"Mm, I second that thought," a voice commented.

The two girls turned to see Max standing in the doorway to the kitchen. He was leaning against the doorframe, listening to the conversation, a smirk on his face.

"Oh?" Mrs. Evans asked. "Why does the thought disturb you? You and Michael are friends, aren't you?"

"Yes, and that is exactly the point. Besides, anything having to do with Izzy's love life is…what did you say…eww?" Max explained. He glanced over at his sister, and smiled.

"Well, I think Michael is a very nice boy," Mrs. Evans remarked. "Pull the salad out of the fridge, Max, and place it on the table, please." She carried the pot of soup over to the table and then glanced at Max and Isabel. "I just don't like that Hank character."

"Yeah…" Isabel and Max answered in unison. They didn't like Michael's foster father either.

"Go wash your hands and call your father, dinner is ready," Mrs. Evans instructed. The two nodded and left the kitchen.

Out in the hallway, Isabel turned to Max and said, "I can't believe Mom thinks Michael and I are…you know…" She shook her head, considering the thought. Then she frowned and tilted her head to one side, wondering what Michael would be like as a boyfriend.

"Oh my God, you are actually considering it," Max hissed, watching the expression on Isabel's face. "Stop it, that's gross. For all we know, he could be your brother!"

Isabel shook her head as her face turned bright red. "I was not considering it! And I know Michael isn't my brother. He doesn't feel like my brother, not the way you do."

Max nodded in silence. It was true, Isabel felt more like family than Michael did. He sighed and shook his head, clearing his confused thoughts. The conversation with Liz had left him disgruntled and worried, and now the thing with Isabel and Michael…

"What happened in lab today? With Liz? Why did you freak out?" Isabel asked, dropping her voice as she stepped over to the sink in the bathroom and washed her hands.

Max hesitated, wondering what to say. Should he tell Isabel? She would freak. She would tell Michael. Michael would freak. Michael would tell Tess. Tess would kill him.

"Nothing. I was just on edge because I had to work with Liz. She's going to start asking questions sometime," Max lied.

"And when she does, we will think up a good lie to tell her," Isabel answered. She stepped away from the sink, allowing Max access to the running water. "I'll call Dad, see you in the kitchen in a moment," she said, then left the bathroom and went in search of her father.

Max sighed and stuck his hands under the cold water. How had things gotten so out of control?

* * *

"Hey, Dad," Kyle said as his father walked in the door. He and Tess were sitting at the dining room table, eating dinner in silence. "You missed dinner. Tess cooked lasagna." 

"There is some in the fridge, Jim. Just heat it up," Tess said shortly. She placed her fork and knife on her plate, drained the water from her glass, and stood up.

Valenti nodded and said, "Thanks, Tess." He watched as his daughter shrugged, nodded and cleared her dishes. She returned a moment later and grabbed her purse from the chair.

"You going out?" Kyle asked, surprised.

"Yes," Tess replied shortly. "I have plans."

"With a boy?" Valenti asked, noting that Tess was wearing a skirt and a halter top and she had straightened her hair.

Tess rolled her eyes and replied, "Yes, with a boy. It's called a date. We are going to a movie, I'll be gone for a while. Don't wait up."

Valenti frowned and said, "Don't you have a curfew?" he dropped his coat and briefcase onto the sofa and took the spot that Tess had just vacated at the table.

"No," Tess replied. She walked over to the door. "See you later."

"Stay away from the Crashdown," Kyle called after Tess. She paused at the door and turned back to him, one eyebrow raised. "I'm just saying…you don't want to get shot, do you?"

"I don't think there will be another shooting there," Tess pointed out. "Violent crimes aren't really a common thing around here." She hesitated, ran a hand through her hair, then said, "Anyway, it wasn't like anyone got shot."

"Liz almost did," Valenti commented.

"Yeah, but instead she tripped over her own feet and broke a bottle of ketchup," Tess replied scathingly. "Of course, she always was clumsy…"

"Hey," Kyle protested, "that is my girlfriend you are talking about." He stood up and grabbed his plate, stalking into the kitchen.

"Put the plate in the dishwasher, don't leave it in the sink," Tess called after him, disregarding his comment about Liz. Kyle knew exactly what she thought about Liz, and arguments between the two siblings were not uncommon. Kyle was a football player. Every cheerleader in the school wanted to date him, and he went for _Liz Parker_.

Tess turned and walked over to the door. Valenti called out a question, stopping her in her tracks.

"What do you know about Max Evans and Michael Guerin?"

Tess turned around and raised her eyebrow again. "Why would I _want_ to know anything about them?" she asked scornfully. "They don't exactly run in my circle of friends."

"Oh?" This time Valenti raised an eyebrow. He sighed and then shook his head. "Just curious. I talked to Michael and Liz about the shooting since they were both present, and I got the feeling that they knew more than they were saying."

Tess paused, quickly weighing her options. Should she lie? Should she try to get him off the scent? How much did he know, and how much did he suspect? Finally, she said, "Yes, I am sure that Ms. Harvard-Bound Microbiologist was really a third party to the shooting and tripped over ketchup to disguise the fact that she knew the two men. She didn't want anyone to expect her of any illegal behavior."

"I think I detect an undercurrent of sarcasm," Kyle called from the kitchen. "Watch what you are saying about my girlfriend."

"Undercurrent?" Tess muttered. "I think the sarcasm was a little more than an _undercurrent_."

"She seemed flustered," Valenti mused quietly.

"Liz is always flustered. She turns beat red when a teacher asks her a question in class," Tess replied, her tone slightly mocking. That was a downright lie, but Valenti had no way of knowing it.

Kyle came out of the kitchen and frowned at his father. "You aren't on your whole alien hunt again, are you? Do you want to end up like Grandpa?"

Valenti glanced in between his two children and shrugged. "There is more to the shooting than meets the eye."

"Maybe, but whatever it is, Liz is not in on it," Kyle said confidently. "And there are no such things as aliens."

"I hate to say this, but I actually agree with Kyle," Tess commented dryly. "Now if you will excuse me, I have a date to attend to. See you all later." She turned abruptly and walked out of the house, letting the door slam shut behind her.

Valenti stared at the door for a moment, then turned to Kyle and said, "You want to talk about people keeping secrets? I swear I haven't been able to have a straight conversation on anything not superficial with your sister since she was ten."

"She doesn't keep secrets. She's just a complete Ice Queen," Kyle replied. "At least, that's what everyone at school says." He turned and walked into his room, leaving his father alone to think about the shooting.

* * *

Outside, Tess paused on the sidewalk and cast an apprehensive look back at her house. Although she would never admit it to anyone, she hated lying to her family. But she always hid her emotions behind a emotionless façade of superficiality, and always did what had to be done. She knew Valenti would not suspect her of trying to divert his attention away from dangerous territory. 

He never did.

* * *

Next Chapter: The Tests of Friendship 

Due: Wednesday 11/2


	4. The Tests of Friendship

Title: This Brillinat Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Re: Mony19: Yeah, I know, I didn't like Max when I was writing that chapter either. In all fairness, he was caught off guard when Liz looked at his cells... Anyway, he is going to be a jerk for a while, but he'll get better. As for who Tess is going to end up dating, well, that would be telling, wouldn't it?

As always, read and review

* * *

Chapter Three: The Tests of Friendship

"Hey, Lizzy," Alex said, announcing his presence. He had promised Maria he would talk to Liz, and although it had taken him the better part of a day and a night to work up the courage to do so, he had finally decided to confront his best friend.

Liz looked up from her journal and smiled at Alex, beckoning him into the room. He walked over to her and flopped down on the bed. Liz shut her journal and tossed it onto the floor, then kicked it underneath her bed. It had been two days since Max had healed her, and it was still freaking her out.

"What's up, Alex?" Liz questioned.

"Honestly?" Alex replied. "Maria is freaking out because she thinks you were lying to her about something." Liz rolled her eyes and started to stand up, but Alex reached out and grabbed her arm, stopping her. "Are you?"

"Of course not!" Liz replied heatedly. "What would I have to lie about?"

"I don't know," Alex said seriously. "You tell me."

Liz yanked her arm out of his grasp and stalked over to her window. She pushed it open and leaned her head out, taking a deep breath of the cool night air. "I'm not lying, Alex. Maria is just overreacting because of the shooting."

Alex sighed and shrugged. "That was what I told Maria. I think she is just overreacting as well. But you _have_ been jumpy lately, and she is worried about you. We're both worried about you."

Liz turned and shot him a small smile. "There is nothing to be worried about. I'm fine, and I am not lying about anything. To either of you."

"Liz?" Mrs. Parker's voice floated from downstairs, interrupting the conversation. "Can you come down for a moment?"

Liz shot Alex an apologetic look. "I'll be right back," she said, turning and hurrying from the room.

Alex watched as Liz left, then he sighed and swung his legs over the side of the bed, pushing himself into a sitting position. He stared around the room for a moment, then stood up. As he did so, his foot hit a corner of the journal on the floor.

He looked down at the journal for a moment, then bent over to push it back further under the bed. As he did so, his eyes caught sight of the (incredibly tacky) material of Liz's waitress outfit. He frowned, wondering what it was doing under the bed. He reached for it, pulling it out.

The dress fell open in his arms. There, in the middle, was a small hole, circled by a stiff red substance. Some of it was definitely ketchup, but some was... Dried blood. He fingered the material, shock written all over his face.

Liz had been shot.

"Alex? My mom wants to know if you want to stay for dinner," Liz said, hurrying back up the stairs to her room. "We're having spaghetti and meatballs…" She broke off abruptly when she saw the dress in Alex's arms.

Alex turned confused brown eyes towards Liz. "So…you aren't lying to us about anything?" he whispered. He swallowed and held the dress out, waiting for an answer.

Liz slammed the door and crossed the floor quickly. She snatched the dress out of his hands and crumpled it up, obscuring the bloodstains from view. "What are you doing, snooping around my room?" she demanded. "Is _that_ why you came over today?"

Alex narrowed his eyes, hurt by Liz's accusation. "I came over because I was worried about you. I accidentally hit the corner of your journal and went to push it back under the bed when I saw the dress. It was an _accident_," he answered coolly. He pointed to the dress in her hands and continued, "Although, I think maybe you are the one who ought to be offering some explanations."

"Fine, whatever," Liz snapped, rolling her eyes. "Maybe you had just better leave." She tossed the dress onto the bed and walked over to the door, yanking it open. She turned back and stared pointedly at Alex, but he didn't move.

After a moment of hesitation, Alex said softly, "Lizzy? What is going on?"

"Nothing!"

"There is blood on your uniform. There is a bullet hole in your uniform. Don't tell me nothing is going on!" Alex shot back angrily. "Why can't you see that Maria and I are just worried about you? We are your friends, this is what we do!"

"If you really are my friend, you will do what I ask, and just drop this," Liz replied coldly, dropping her voice and glancing out of her room to make sure neither of her parents were close enough to overhear the conversation. She turned back to Alex, her eyes determined, her face set.

"Liz!"

"Drop it, and get Maria to drop it. That will prove that you really are my friend."

Alex stared at Liz in shock for a moment, as though he was seeing her clearly for the first time. Then he shrugged, a hurt expression on his face, and replied, "Sorry. I was just concerned about you. I guess I shouldn't have bothered." He walked past her out of the room.

Liz watched him go, upset and frustrated. She wanted to tell him, she wanted it so badly, but she couldn't. She had made a promise to Max. Groaning in annoyance, she closed the door again, reached for the phone and quickly dialed a number.

* * *

"Get me a beer, boy," Hank Guerin ordered as he watched the football game. He grabbed a handful of pretzels from the bag in front of him and began to stuff them in his mouth. He leaned back on the sofa, absorbed in the television.

Michael looked up from where he was sitting, and pushed himself up. The chair he had been sitting on was unceremoniously kicked out of the way as he stalked into the kitchen. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and carried it back to Hank. "Here," he said, thrusting the drink towards him foster father.

Hank took it without comment, still focused on the game.

Michael turned back towards the kitchen, when he caught sight of Liz standing at the front door, staring at him nervously. She was wringing her hands and smiling at him through the screen door.

"I'm taking the trash out," Michael said, grabbing the plastic bag from inside the kitchen garbage can and walking towards the front door.

Hank made a noncommittal grunt.

Outside, Michael grabbed Liz and yanked her away from the house. "What are you doing here?" he demanded angrily.

"I needed to talk to one of you, and when I called over to Max's, Mrs. Evans told me that he and Isabel were out, and she didn't know when they would be back," Liz explained, worried. Michael had always made her uneasy in the past, now that she knew he was not fully human… Well, it didn't make her feel any _better_.

"So you came to me? I'm touched," Michael replied sarcastically. He yanked the top of the trash bin open and deposited the plastic bag inside. He turned and shot a wary glance back at the house. He didn't want Hank to come bother him or Liz, but Hank was still absorbed in the game and had not noticed what Michael was really doing.

"You seemed like a better option than Tess," Liz replied honestly. She followed Michael's gaze and frowned. She didn't know much about Hank or Michael's living situation, and she wondered briefly what his foster father was like.

Michael snorted at the comment, a grin playing at the corners of his lips, but then frowned in sudden confusion. "Wait, how did you know about Tess?"

"Max didn't tell you?" Liz asked, surprised. She blushed and turned away from Michael's penetrating gaze. "I sort of looked at his cells in class yesterday and…"

"Max let you look at his cells," Michael hissed, taking a step towards Liz. How could Max have been so stupid? And how much did Liz know about them? Did she knew _everything_?

"No… not exactly," Liz replied, instinctively backing away from Michael. She turned and glanced back at her car, mentally preparing herself in case she needed to make a hasty escape. She hated feeling cornered, and Michael had her trapped in between himself and the trashcans.

Michael's expression darkened, and his eyes narrowed. "Then how did you see the cells?" he asked, his eyes furious as he jumped to the logical conclusion. "You tricked him into it…? Do you have any idea what you've done?"

"Yes," Liz replied. She looked down at her hands, then back up at Michael's wrathful brown eyes. "Look…that doesn't matter right now. I know that you four aren't from around here, Max told me that much. I won't tell anyone, I promise."

"Sorry, but that doesn't mean that much to me," Michael snarled. He abruptly turned away from Liz and took a few steps in the other direction. Liz breathed a sigh of relief as he moved, feeling more comfortable when he kept his distance.

Liz took several steps away from Michael, putting as much distance in between the two as possible and said, "Look, I came to you because I needed help. Alex is asking questions."

"Alex Whitman?" Michael demanded. "The computer and band geek?"

Liz stiffened slightly at the insult to Alex, but nodded slowly. "Yeah… He found my uniform. It had the bullet hole in it, and bloodstains on it. He knows something happened. I have to tell him something."

"What did Max tell you?" Michael asked slowly, turning to face Liz. He licked his dry lips and he weighed his options.

Liz sighed and shrugged. "You, Tess, Isabel, and Max are aliens. That was really about it."

"He didn't tell you anything else? What our powers are, where we are from, any of that?" Michael asked, staring intently at Liz.

Liz swallowed and shook her head. "No, just that bad things would happen to you four, and probably me, if I told anyone. Which I won't," she added as an afterthought.

"When did he tell you this?"

"Yesterday," Liz replied. "Yesterday after lab."

Michael nodded and turned away from the girl. Yesterday? Why hadn't Max informed the other three that he had told Liz about being an alien? Or had he? Had he told Isabel or Tess? Was Michael the only one out of the loop?

"Do you still have the dress?" Michael asked finally.

"What?" Liz replied, startled. "Uh…yeah, it's in my room."

Michael nodded, then ordered, "Go home. Keep everyone away from that dress. I'll take care of everything else." He walked back towards his house, his thoughts in a whirl as he tried to process the information.

"How?" Liz called after him. However, Michael simply turned and glared at her, and she decided not to press the issue. Instead, she turned and walked away.

Michael paused on the doorstep of his house, watching Liz go, his expression stormy. Then he turned and walked back into the house. He stormed past Hank, who did not bother to acknowledge Michael, and into the kitchen, where he grabbed the phone. He punched in the numbers for the Evans' household, and waited until Diane picked up the phone.

"Hi, Mrs. Evans. It's Michael. Is Max or Isabel there?"

"Oh, hello Michael," Mrs. Evans replied sweetly. "No, they are both out right now. Do you want me to take a message?"

"Yes. Just tell them I called."

"No problem."

"Thanks," Michael replied, hanging up the phone.

Michael stared at the phone for a moment, then dialed another number. He listened to it ring for a moment, then there was a click of it being answered, and a curt voice said, "What do you want, Michael?"

"Nice to talk to you too, Tess," Michael replied, grinning slightly at the annoyed tone to Tess' voice. "I needed to talk to you."

"Obviously. You would not have called my cell phone otherwise," Tess replied, her voice acerbic. "So talk."

No point beating around the bush. "Max told Liz that we are aliens. You, me, Isabel, and him."

There was a silence, then Tess said, "I was not informed of this."

"Neither was I, until Liz stopped by today asking for my help. Apparently Max told her _yesterday_." There was a sharp intake of breath from the other end of the line, and Michael closed his eyes, picturing Tess seething with fury. He could almost see her preparing to tear Max's head off. The image struck him as funny, and he let out a short laugh.

"What are you laughing about?" Tess snapped.

"Nothing," Michael muttered quickly. Although he would not admit it to anyone, Tess scared him. Nothing else could terrify him quite like a furious Tess could. Not the police, not the FBI, not evil aliens...

"Well, thank you for informing me of the latest development. I will be sure to speak to Max when I have the chance," Tess murmured, her voice icy.

"There's more," Michael said quickly. He paused, then said all in one breath, "It's about Alex Whitman."

* * *

Of all the things Liz had ever expected to see in her life, Tess Harding standing at the door of her room was at the very bottom of the list. She stared in complete shock at the girl, her mouth hanging open.

"Are you going to invite me in, or are you just going to stand there and gawk at me?" Tess asked coolly, raising one perfectly sculpted eyebrow.

"Co-come in," Liz stuttered.

Tess smiled and stepped gracefully into the room. "I hear Max told you who were are," she said. She flashed a icy smile at Liz.

"Yes…" Liz replied. "Is Michael very upset with him?"

"Michael?" Tess asked, surprised. "Why are you worried about what Michael thinks?" Liz didn't answer, and Tess narrowed her eyes at the human girl. Realization dawned on her features, and she smirked. "You think Michael is the most dangerous of us? That if he is upset, Max might be in some sort of danger?"

Liz swallowed and nodded, looking away.

"And you don't want Max to be in trouble because of you? How _sweet_," Tess replied. "Ironic, too, if you consider the fact that if Max had not healed you, we wouldn't be in this mess to start with. You couldn't have just _sidestepped_ the bullet?"

Liz looked back at Tess, then down at her hands, feeling somewhat guilty.

"Michael is certainly the most volatile of any of us, but when it comes to who is the most dangerous…? Trust me, Liz, _I'm_ the one you should be worried about."

Liz's eyes snapped up to Tess' face. Icy sapphire orbs met soft brown ones, and Liz shivered, suddenly afraid. Was Tess here to finish her off? Had Michael decided she was a threat and she needed to be gotten rid of? Was that what he meant when he said he would take care of everything?

"Don't be ridiculous," Tess snapped. "I'm not going to kill you." She shook her head in annoyance. How did humans get such strange thoughts? They see something they don't understand and they automatically jump to the conclusion that it's going to kill them?

"How did you know that I was thinking that?" Liz asked, surprised and confused.

Tess smirked. "I just did," she replied easily. "Now, where is your uniform?"

Liz blinked, surprised by the sudden change in conversation. She glanced at her bed, then walked over and pulled the dress out from underneath it and handed it to Tess.

"This has got to be one of the most unflattering outfits I have ever seen," Tess commented as she unfolded the fabric.

Liz said nothing, just watched in fascination as Tess ran her hand over the ketchup, the dried blood, and the bullet hole. The fabric mended itself together, and the blood disappeared, leaving just the ketchup on the material. The dress looked good as new.

"How did you…?" Liz began, but one look at the expression on Tess' face caused her to drop the question before she could complete it. Instead, she took the dress back from Tess and dropped it to the floor, kicking it back under the bed.

Tess then turned to go. She paused at the door, and turned back to Liz. "You have feelings for Max," she said. It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes," Liz agreed. "I don't know what they are, but when Max healed me, I felt…" She closed her eyes, trying to recall the emotions. "It was as though all these different sensations where wrapping around every cell in my body. It was so joyful, and so beautiful, and so peaceful, and yet so heartbreakingly sad at the same time."

"Very poetic."

The dry comment made Liz realize that she was talking to Tess. Not Maria, not Alex. _Tess_. She blushed and looked away. "I suppose you have a rule against me dating an alien?" she said softly.

Tess stared at her for a long time, her eyes narrowed, her expression unreadable. At last, she said slowly, "I don't like seeing my family hurt."

"I would never hurt Max," Liz argued, her eyes widening at the accusation. "I swear. That's why I won't tell your secret to anyone. I couldn't do it. I just _couldn't_."

"I was talking about _Kyle_." Tess turned and walked away without another word.

* * *

"You told Liz yesterday, and you didn't think to tell us?" Isabel hissed at her brother. "I asked you! I specifically asked you last night what had happened in lab and you _lied_ to me? What the hell is wrong with you? Did you think we would never find out?"

"I didn't know what else to do," Max replied. "She had me cornered."

He, Michael, and Isabel were all sitting on the floor of Isabel's room. Isabel was furious, Max was defensive, and Michael was worried. However, they had all agreed on one thing, it was better not to invite Tess to this meeting.

"You could have lied!" Isabel repeated. "Or are you out of your mind?"

"You still have explained why you didn't tell us last night," Michael said coldly. "Especially if Izzy asked you directly about it."

"I was afraid you would overreact," Max defended himself. "She won't talk, I know she won't."

"Yeah, your reassurances mean so much to me right now," Isabel snapped. She jumped to her feet and began to pace angrily. "I can't believe you could be so pigheaded and stupid, and selfish, and…" A lamp near her bed exploded.

Three sets of eyes turned to the lamp, then Isabel used her powers to put it back together.

"Careful, Izzy," Michael cautioned.

"Yeah, because me blowing up a lamp is going to get us into so much trouble," Is replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "I'm not the one who spilled our secret to a complete stranger." She sat down on the bed, her face filled with frustration.

"Izzy, I said I was sorry. And I am. But I can't go back and change what happened. I wish I could, but I don't control time," Max replied softly.

"Why didn't you tell us that you told Liz who we are?" Michael demanded, cutting into the conversation.

"I told you, I thought you would overreact."

"You should have told us anyway," Michael replied. "It concerned us too."

Max looked back and forth between Michael and Isabel and sighed. He ran a hand through his hair and took a shaky breath. "I know. I'm sorry."

"What are we doing about the uniform?" Isabel said, turning from Max to Michael. Max frowned, annoyed that she had not accepted his apology. However, the fact that she had stopped berating him was good. It showed that she had forgiven him, at least a little.

"Tess went over to Liz's to take care of it," Michael replied.

"You sent Tess to Liz?" Max asked, his eyes wide. "Are you insane?"

Michael snorted and replied, "I really don't think _you_ should be asking _me_ that." Max opened his mouth to argue, that sighed and nodded his head in acknowledgement of the truth in Michael's words.

"So that is taken care of?" Isabel pressed.

"Yes," Michael replied.

"And Alex?"

Michael frowned and glanced over at Max. "I don't know what to say about that. I'd have Tess erase his memory, but I don't know how well that would go over with Liz, and I don't trust her enough to risk her telling the police about us in revenge for tampering with her friend's memory."

"Liz wouldn't do that," Max snapped.

"You don't even know the girl," Michael shot back. "Why do you have her on this pedestal, Max? She isn't a saint."

"Do you trust her?" Max asked.

Michael stared at him, then at Isabel. He thought back to the girl who had approached him at his house, asking for help. "I want to," he admitted. "But simply wanting to trust her isn't enough."

"Well, we will deal with Alex when we have to," Isabel said slowly. She shot a brief smile at her brother and got off the bed. "As mad as I am at you, Max, we are in this together. And whatever happens, we will deal with it, together."

* * *

"Alex?" Maria asked, hurrying over to the booth Alex sat at in the Crashdown. She lowered her voice and looked around, but there was no one there to overhear her. "Did you talk to Liz?"

Alex looked up at Maria and frowned. What was he supposed to say? He thought over his last conversation with Liz, his mind lingering on her parting words.

_Drop it, and get Maria to drop it. That will prove that you really are my friend._

Alex made a decision. "Yeah…I did. And she said exactly what I told you she would. There is nothing wrong, she is jumpy because she got shot at. Honestly, you worry too much."

Maria looked disappointed, and not entirely convinced, but she shrugged and dropped the subject. Straightening the antennas on her uniform's headband, she smiled and said, "So, what would you like to eat today?"

"Give me a second, okay?" Alex muttered, looking down at the menu.

Maria frowned at her boyfriend and shook her head. Alex never looked at the menu, he knew it all by heart. What was going on, and why did she get the sinking feeling that Alex knew much more than he was letting on?

As Maria turned and walked off to help other customers, Alex let out a shaky breath and bit his lip. He hated lying to her. He hated not knowing what was going on with Liz. He hated this feeling he was getting, that everything was about to change, to fall apart. It scared him.

It would have scared him a lot more if he knew just how close to the truth he really was.

* * *

"What about a movie? We could grab dinner first?" Kyle suggested into the phone. He was pacing back and forth across the floor of his room, talking to Liz on his phone. "I haven't seen you in a while."

"Uh…I don't know Kyle…I'm kind of busy…homework and all…" Liz replied.

Kyle frowned, thinking that she sounded distracted. "Liz, come on. Procrastinate your homework and come out with me. It'll be fun. There is a new movie out that looks good, we could see it. I think it's the…"

"Kyle," Liz cut in, "I really don't think now is good. How about later? Next week?"

"Are you okay?" Kyle asked gently. "I know the shooting must have freaked you out, especially with what happened and all…"

"What? What do you mean, what happened?" Liz demanded frantically.

"You almost got shot," Kyle answered. He frowned, puzzled by the odd tone in her voice. "What did you think I meant?"

"Oh…nothing," Liz replied. There was a momentary awkward pause, then Liz said, "Next week we'll do something, okay?"

"Sure," Kyle replied, somewhat dejectedly. "Next week." As he hung up the phone, he couldn't help but think that something was going on with Liz, and she was lying to him about it.

* * *

Valenti stared at the files in his hand. They were the adoption files for Max and Isabel Evans, and the foster-care file for Michael Guerin. He put the three files down on his desk and opened them, flipping through each one.

It was nothing he didn't already know. Isabel and Max had been found naked, wandering in the desert. They did not know how to speak, they had no memories of the first six years of their lives, and they were alone. A few days later, Michael was brought into the Roswell Child Services Office. He too had been found in the desert, and he also had no previous memory, and no knowledge of English.

What could have happened to make them forget everything? What trauma could have possibly occurred that would erase six years worth of memories?

He sighed and closed his eyes, leaning back in his chair.

He knew they would never catch the shooters. The two had run from the Crashdown the minute the shot was fired, and they were most likely long gone by now. But too many things didn't add up for him to dismiss the case. Why were Liz and Michael lying to him? What secrets were they hiding? What happened to the bullet?

And some sixth sense was telling Valenti that the answer to his questions could be found in the missing six years of Max, Isabel, and Michael's lives.

* * *

Next Chapter: Gifts 

Due: Thursday 11/10


	5. Gifts

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Re: starra86: I realized I hadn't responded to your review, and I am so sorry about that! Better late than never, right:) Without Nasedo, Tess would have been so much different, but I do think there was something in her personality that made her more...well, rutheless isn't quite the right word...but willing to do whatever it took to keep herself and the people she loved safe (i.e. killing herself and blowing up the army base to save her son), so I am trying to keep that part of her personality intact. As you will see in this chapter...

Re: Crystal: Thanks for the review, I'm glad you like it so far. Nobody likes the Sherrif snooping around, but it is his job. So he is going to keep doing it for a while.

Re: Mony19: Yes, sometimes Max is a jerk. Then again, Tess hasn't been the most pleasant person in this story either. As for Maria and Alex, I like them together also, but I am actually a pretty big candy fan. So Maria will end up with Michael.

* * *

Chapter Four: Gifts 

Liz pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and stared down at her journal. She bit the end of her pen, trying to come up with the right words to express what she was feeling. Her lukewarm relationship with Kyle was possibly ruining her chance at a relationship with Max. And she could somehow feel, in her bones, that the liaison with Max would be anything but lukewarm.

And then there was the secret she possessed. She couldn't tell anyone about it, so writing it in her journal seemed like the obvious choice. She wanted to scream it to the world, but she had made a promise, and she had no intention of breaking it.

She could clearly picture the look in Michael's eyes as he looked down at her after she had been shot, her body covered in ketchup. She remembered the fear in that face.

Her argument with Alex and her problems with Maria would go in the journal also. She wished that the others would trust Alex and Maria as much as she did, but she knew not to push her luck. For now, she would just have to hope that whatever happened, their friendship could survive it.

And yet… And yet she had not managed to find a way to write any of this down. It had been a week since the shooting, and still all her journal contained was mundane trivia about who was dating who at school and the latest gossip around Pam Troy's social life (if you could even call it that—was shoving your tongue down some random guy's throat considered a social life?).

Liz touched the paper with the point of her pen and closed her eyes, trying to feel the words come. After a moment of hesitation, she began to write.

_Three days ago, I died. Then things got really weird.

* * *

_

Sheriff Valenti bent down over the counter of the Crashdown and peered around at the wood. He ran his hand up and down over the smooth surface. He licked his lips for a moment, then stood up. He walked over to the table the two gunman had been out and sat down.

There was no bullet hole. There weren't even scratch marks on the paint. It was as though the bullet had never been fired, or it had been fired, but had hit something else that was no longer in the room.

Or _someone_ else.

"Is this really necessary, Jim?" Mr. Parker asked, appearing out of nowhere. "I appreciate that you want to catch the two men who did this, but they are long gone, and running around after missing bullets is not going to bring them back."

Valenti glanced over at Mr. Parker and replied, "I know how you feel, Jeff. But those two guys may still be somewhere close by. Maybe in another town over. It is my responsibility to do everything I can to find them before they hurt someone."

"And you think staring at my counter is going to do that?" Mr. Parker asked, somewhat skeptical.

Valenti shook his head and stood up. "If I can find the bullet, we will be able to use ballistics evidence to figure out what type of gun they were using. And Roswell is a small town, if the gun was bought here…"

"Alright, alright," Mr. Parker held his hands up in surrender. "I get it. Carry on. Just try not to scare too many of the customers away, okay?"

Valenti flashed Mr. Parker a brief smile and said, "Yeah, okay." Mr. Parker turned and left the room. Valenti watched him go for a moment, then shook his head. There was too much going on right now. Liz was lying, Michael Guerin was lying, and a bullet had somehow completely disappeared.

Valenti opened his notepad and stared down at what he had written. They were all witness accounts, and while there were several anomalies between the stories, each account seemed to agree on one thing; the bullet had been fired straight at Liz Parker.

Valenti turned and walked back over to the counter. He stood at the spot that Liz had fallen, and looked left and right. The counter was clear, so Valenti walked over to a table and grabbed a bottle of ketchup. He placed it on the counter next to where Liz had been standing and then looked back at the table where the shooters had been.

"Okay…so the shot is fired at Liz, and she stumbles backwards, knocking into the ketchup," Valenti muttered. "It spills all over her dress, and everyone thinks it is blood. Meanwhile, Max Evans and Michael Guerin run up to her…or don't run up to her, depending on who you ask. They leave, Maria DeLuca and Jeff and Nancy come running up to Liz."

Something seemed wrong about the scenario, but Valenti couldn't quite figure out what it was. He stood for a moment, his head cocked to one side, as he stared at the counter, the ketchup bottle, the spot on the ground where Liz had fallen…

Wait.

Valenti reached his hand out to the ketchup bottle. Liz had fallen _away_ from the counter. She had not fallen towards the ketchup, so how had she possible managed to knock it over? Even if she had hit it with her flaying arms, it would have pushed the bottle away from her… not on her.

"I need to see that uniform."

* * *

"I let it go once, because I'm her friend. But Liz could be in danger, and I can't just sit her and do nothing," Alex muttered to himself as he shoved the window to Liz's room open and pulled himself inside. He knew Liz was out right now, she and Maria had gone shopping, so he had seized the opportunity to search her room. 

He closed the window behind him and walked over to the bed. Dropping to his knees, he grabbed at the dress underneath the bed. He yanked it out and unfolded it, letting the fabric fall onto his lap.

There was no blood.

He ran his hand over the dress. There was ketchup on the dress now, but no blood. However, the substance he had seen the day before had definitely been blood. Dried blood and a bullet hole, both of which where now gone.

Liz must have switched the dresses.

Alex stood up and placed the dress on the bed. He walked over to the journal that lay on the desk and reached out for it. Then he stopped and shook his head, turning away. That was too much an invasion of privacy.

Although…

He was already in her room, wasn't he? He had already rifled through the contents underneath her bed, hadn't he? And she had definitely been lying to him about something. What if she was in trouble? He would have an obligation to try and help her, even if it meant going through her belongings. Wouldn't he?

He picked up the journal and opened it to the first page.

A few entries rambled on about Pam Troy, a few about Maria practicing her singing, one about an annoying customer at the diner earlier in the week… There was nothing in the first couple pages, and Alex felt more and more like a slug for doing something as low as reading Liz's diary. What would she say if she found out?

And then Alex stopped at an entry. He looked at it. He read the first sentence. He read it again. He put the book down, rubbed his eyes, picked the book up, and read it again.

"This is just Liz making up a story…" Alex murmured to himself. "This is just Liz being inventive and wanting to write science fiction."

But Alex knew that Liz didn't actually have an imagination. She was the scientific one of the group, and even if she did want to write fiction, she wouldn't have done it in her journal. She would have started a new notebook to keep fact and fiction separate. That was just the type of person Liz was.

Alex went back and read the entry again.

_Three days ago, I died. Then things got really weird._

Alex read the entry, then skimmed the following ones. He shut the book with a decisive snap and placed it back on the desk. He shoved Liz' ketchup-covered uniform underneath the bed, walked over to the window, and climbed out. He shut the window behind him and left, determined to talk to Liz as soon as possible.

But first…first he was going to have a little chat with Sheriff Valenti.

* * *

Tess sat on the chair in the waiting room outside the Sheriff's office and tapped her feet against the floor, bored. She leaned back in the chair and yawned, then glanced around the room. It was a bare room, one of the ones that looked as though it had been decorated when Roswell was first founded and not touched since. The carpet was a grayish brown. There was a circle of chairs, each made of dark red mahogany. They were plain, without cushions or even some form of a design on their seats or backs. There walls were covered with crowded pictures of old Sheriffs, each wearing a cowboy hat. 

Tess yawned again and stood up to stretch her feet. She had stopped by to get the Sheriff to sign her report card. She was actually doing quite well in school, her grades probably rivaled those of Liz Parker. Not that she would actually admit it to anyone.

She didn't want people to think she was a nerd.

Roswell High still had the stupid rule that parents had to sign their child's report cards. She didn't know why, it seemed pointless. And since the Sheriff was rarely home, especially this past week, she had brought the card to him.

At that moment, the door to the waiting room opened and a voice said, "If you'll wait in here, the Sheriff will be with you shortly."

A boy stepped into the room and turned to thank the receptionist who had shown him in. Tess stared at him in surprise.

It was Alex Whitman.

Alex turned and caught sight of her, and his face went completely pale. "What are you doing here?" he demanded harshly, trying to keep a brave face.

Tess raised one eyebrow at him and replied coolly, "How is that any of your business?" She folded her arms across her chest and flashed him an icy smile.

"You don't intimidate me," Alex hissed.

"Oh?" Tess replied. "I don't, do I?" She turned away and ran a hand through her hair. "Pity," she continued. "It was my goal in life to _intimidate_ all of the computer geeks at Roswell High."

"I know your secret," Alex spat.

Tess stiffened, but she was facing away from Alex, so he could not see the quick wave of fear that passed through her face. "And what secret would that be?" Tess asked.

Alex stepped closer. "I read Liz's journal. I know about what Max did to her. And I am going to tell Valenti about you and have you freaks removed from this town!"

Tess turned to face him, her face carefully neutral. "Freaks?" she questioned. "_You_ are calling _me_ a freak?" Her tone was mocking. She crossed the room towards him and glanced around, making sure that no one was around to hear. "What did Liz's journal say?"

"That you are an alien," Alex replied. He backed away from Tess, suddenly scared. Who knew what powers she had?

"And you believed it?"

"Yes," Alex whispered defiantly.

Tess stared at Alex for a moment, the slowly slipped into his mind. He did believe. She drew back again before she could sense anything else other than his overwhelming conviction that they were all a threat to Liz and Maria.

She weighed her options. She needed to get him to keep the secret, and she needed to do it before Jim showed up. She licked her lips and frowned slightly. She could play on his fear of her and on his wanting to protect Liz.

"After what you just found out, you _aren't_ intimidated by me? Not the brightest person in Roswell, are you?" she asked, leaning in.

Alex flinched and leaned away. "If you hurt Liz or Maria…"

"I won't."

The two words caused Alex to look up sharply, his eyes narrowed. He and Tess stood in silence for a moment, then Alex asked, "How can I trust you?"

"You think if you tell the Sheriff who we are you will be protecting Liz?" Tess asked. "Once they find out that Max healed her, they'll want to see her too. They'll come after her in the middle of the night and drag her off to some laboratory where they can dissect her to see if she is any different from other humans now."

"Who's they?" Alex breathed, scared.

"FBI, CIA, NSC, Army, Navy, reporters, politicians, enemy aliens. Does it matter, Alex? They'll come." Tess focused on Alex's brain again and gently pushed fear into his mind. She could see he was already terrified, the extra push would make sure he never talked.

"I don't want anything to happen to Liz," Alex whispered.

"Then you had better not tell," Tess replied coldly. Her eyes narrowed into icy slits and she continued, "Because I promise you, Alex Whitman, if you put Max, Isabel, Michael, or myself in danger, what the FBI does to Liz will be the least of your problems." Her voice was hard, and Alex stepped back as though he had been slapped.

He understood the warning.

Something else was bothering Tess, though. Liz had a journal. Liz had written down what had happened? Was she an idiot? What if someone…the wrong someone…saw it? She turned away abruptly and walked over to the chair, confident that she had done her job with Alex, at least. He would take the secret to the grave with him.

Alex turned and left the waiting room. As the door swung shut behind him, Valenti poked his head out of his office and said, "Tess? Come on in."

Tess got up and walked into her father's office. She stared at his desk, surprised to see Liz's ketchup-covered dress on the desk. She took the report card out of her bag and wordlessly handed it to Valenti, thinking. She may have taken care of Alex, but there would be more who followed.

Tess let her eyes wandered over the desk while Valenti said, "Nice grades, Tess." She nodded slowly, staring at three files buried under a pile of papers and books. She reached across and pulled them out, staring at the names on them.

"You're looking into Max, Isabel, and Michael's past?" Tess asked, feigning casual surprise. "Why?" She looked up, struggling to keep her expression neutral. "Did they get in some kind of trouble?" Her tone was slightly mocking, as though she couldn't believe that the three would ever do anything to get themselves in trouble with the law.

"Just interested," Valenti replied, handing Tess her report card back and taking the files from her. He dropped the files on to the desk and smiled at his foster-daughter.

Tess licked her lips and nodded. "Yeah…" She took a quick breath and said slowly, "Well, I have to get going, I'll see you later." She stuffed her report card into her bag and walked from the room.

That was the problem with her powers. On a small scale, she could play with people's minds quite well. But it only worked for little things. Alex wanted to protect Liz and Maria, and she only had to slightly increase that desire. Jim, on the other hand, desperately wanted to find the truth, and that meant she would have to do a lot of work on his mind to get him to drop the case. And extensive mind-warps were not only difficult to control and dangerous, but almost anything could cause the person to break out of it.

No, it would be better to get Jim to drop it on his own, to get him to _want _to drop it. If she could convince him that chasing aliens would only result in tearing the family apart...if she could remind him what had happened to his father... But she couldn't do it directly. He would suspect her, if she did. She would have to do it indirectly, through Kyle. And that would take time and planning.

But did she have time?

Because whatever Valenti knew, whatever he suspected, she had to put a stop to it. And fast.

* * *

"Jim," Mrs. Evans said in surprise, opening the door wider and allowing the Sheriff into her house. "What a pleasant surprise. Come on in." 

Valenti stepped into her house and nodded. "Thank you, Diane. I hope I am not interrupting anything?" he asked politely, removing his hat and glancing around the living room.

"Of course not," Mrs. Evans replied. "Would you like some tea?" Once Valenti nodded, Mrs. Evans turned and hurried into the kitchen to boil the water. She called over her shoulder, "Do make yourself at home."

Valenti walked around the living room, staring at all of the pictures on the mantle, on the tables, and on the walls. Each one showed the happy family; Isabel and Max playing in the sand as children, Mr. Evans carrying Max on his shoulders in the park, Max and Isabel listening with rapt attention as Mrs. Evans read them a story.

"So, Jim, what brings you here?" Mrs. Evans asked, interrupting his thoughts as she reentered the room holding to mugs of tea.

Valenti took the tea from her and sat down on the sofa. "Have you talked to Max at all about the shooting?" he asked without preamble.

"The shooting?" Mrs. Evans frowned, surprised. "We've talked about it a little, but not much. It did upset him, you know, because he hangs out at the Crashdown quite a lot." She leaned in conspiratorially and said, "I think he has a crush on one of the waitresses. Maria DeLuca."

Valenti nodded, taking this in. He didn't know much about Maria, except that she was friends with Liz. Then he sighed and said, "Did Max tell you he was there when the shooting happened?"

Mrs. Evans eyes went wide. "I had no idea," she cried, dismayed. "Oh, he must have been so upset about it. Why didn't he tell me he was there?"

"Where did he say he was?" Valenti asked casually, taking a sip of his tea.

"At Michael's," Mrs. Evans answered. She sighed and shook her head. "It is no wonder he didn't tell me, though. He is a very independent boy, both him and Isabel are like that. Sometimes I feel so far away from them, like I can't possibly begin to comprehend what is going on in their mind."

Valenti blinked and thought of Tess. "Yeah, I know the feeling," he muttered.

Mrs. Evans nodded sympathetically. "With Tess, right? Yes, I think it is something about adopting children. They still feel separate from you, even after they have been in your family for so many years."

"Did you ever want children of your own?" Valenti asked. "You know, real children?"

Mrs. Evans looked up, shocked. "Jim," she admonished, "Max and Isabel _are_ my real children."

Valenti cringed, realizing how inconsiderate his words had sounded. "I didn't mean it like that," he said quickly, holding up his hands in surrender. "I meant…well, like with me I have Tess and Kyle."

"And is Kyle any more your child then Tess?" Mrs. Evans asked, pursing her lips and narrowing her eyebrows.

Valenti thought about that for a moment, then shook his head. "No, I guess not. Although I am always able to talk to Kyle, and with Tess, things are so…she is just very distant."

"Maybe that's because she is a girl and not a boy," Mrs. Evans suggested, grinning. "I've always been able to talk to Isabel with more ease than Max." She leaned back in her chair and said, "Why all the questions?"

Valenti shrugged and replied, "I just wanted to see if Max had mentioned anything to you about the shooting. Anything that would be helpful in catching the men who did this."

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" Mrs. Evans asked, surprised. "I'm sure he would tell you."

But Valenti shook his head. "People are always hesitant to tell the police anything. Even innocent witnesses like Max…I think he would have told you things that he would have kept from me."

"Like I said, Max didn't tell me anything. But I'll talk to him tonight and tell him to talk to you." Mrs. Evans sighed again and shook her head. "I wonder why he didn't tell me?" she mused.

Valenti drew a breath and thought over the facts. Michael had lied to him, Liz had lied to him, and Max had lied to his mother. The last was not so surprising, Max probably just didn't want her to worry. But still…things just didn't add up.

* * *

Liz rapped her knuckles against the window pain of Max's room and waited, holding her breath. The window slowly squeaked open, and Max stuck his head out. "Liz?" he whispered, looking puzzled at her sudden appearance. "What are you doing here?" 

"Expecting someone else?" Liz asked, teasing.

"Actually, yes," Max replied honestly, which caused Liz to raise her eyebrows in surprise. "Normally when someone knocks at my window, it is Michael or, on rare occasions, Tess."

"Oh," Liz replied. "Can I come in anyway?"

"What?" Max looked startled. "Of course. Sorry, I should have invited you in." He stepped away from the window, and Liz carefully climbed into the room. She glanced around for a moment, taking in the sight.

She had never been in Max's room before. It was a large room. To one side was a bed, covered with green flannel sheets and a green comforter. There was a desk, piled with books and papers, a bookshelf, and a dresser. On the dresser was a picture of Max, Isabel, and Michael.

"What do you think?" Max asked, as Liz looked around.

Liz looked up at him and blushed. "It's nice. Very…green." She glanced quickly over at the door. "Your parents won't come up?"

"No," Max replied. "Why didn't you just come to the front door anyway?" He gestured for Liz to sit down on his bed, which she did, then he sat down next to her.

"I didn't want anyone to know I had come to talk to you," Liz explained a little breathlessly. "My mom just told me that Sheriff Valenti came by and asked her for my uniform."

"So?" Max asked, his features puzzled. "I thought Tess had taken care of that."

"She did," Liz said, waiving away the concern with one hand. "But Max, Alex saw the uniform when it had blood on it. He saw the bullet hole. I don't know how much longer I can keep lying to him about it."

Max sighed and shook his head. "Okay. I'll talk to Isabel and Michael. We'll figure something out."

Liz frowned, noticing that Max had left Tess out of the sentence. She wondered briefly about that, but decided it was better not to ask. Instead, she settled on asking about a different issue that was bothering her.

"Max, what did Tess do to my uniform? What did you do to me? What are your… powers?" It didn't seem like quite the right word, but Liz couldn't think of a better one.

"Gifts," Max corrected softly. "We call them gifts, not powers. It was one of the things Isabel was adamant about. So we remember not to abuse them." He rolled his eyes.

Liz cracked a smile. That did sound like Isabel. "What can you do?" she asked. "What _gifts_ do you have?"

"We can manipulate molecular structure," Max replied. He glanced over at one of the books on his desk and waved his hand at it, causing it to turn into a teacup. Liz stared at it, her mouth open her eyes wide.

"That's what Tess did with my dress when she was removing the blood?" Liz asked.

Max nodded slowly. "And…we can sometimes connect with people…"

"What?" Liz interrupted. "I don't understand. What do you mean, connect?"

"Well, when I healed you, I sort of…formed a connection with you. It was like I could see flashes of…who you were and…" He started laughing.

"What's so funny?" Liz demanded, crossing her arms and glaring at Max.

"Sorry, I just , uh, I just keep picturing you in that dress, with the, uh, the cupcakes...on it," Max explained, grinning to himself at the memory. "You were mortified to wear it."

Liz frowned, trying to recall the dress. Suddenly she remembered the hideous looking dress her mother had made in kindergarten. "Oh my God. That's right." She grinned slightly at the memory, then frowned. "But, I had that dress in kindergarten, and I didn't know you until the third grade."

"Like I said, it was the connection," Max replied. He sighed and wrapped his arms around himself. "I normally don't make them, because I normally don't heal people. And they aren't really my forte, anyway."

"So you four also heal?"

"No, that's just me," Max replied. "We each have our own unique gifts, and mine is the ability to heal."

"What are…?"

"Isabel can enter people's dreams, Michael can…can…" Max frowned, trying to think of a good way to explain what Michael could do. "He can blow up things. Make them explode. I mean, we can all do that, but he can do it on a much bigger scale. And he can actually control it. Normally when Isabel, Tess, or I blow things up, it is because our emotions got out of control."

"And Tess? What are here gifts?"

Max hesitated, then shook his head. "I can't tell you that one."

"Why not?"

"You aren't ready to know," Max replied honestly. He didn't want to scare Liz away, and if she knew that Tess had complete control over people's minds… Would she decide that the aliens were dangerous? Evil?

"Okay," Liz agreed, realizing that Max was not going to change his mind on the subject. "Can I ask you a different question about Tess then?"

"Maybe…" Max answered, still hesitant to bring Tess into this. The more he told Liz about Tess, the more grief Tess would give him.

"Well, you and Isabel have your parents' last names, and Michael has Hank's last name. Why is Tess' last name Harding and not Valenti?"

Max paused for a moment, weighing his options. He didn't want to lie to Liz, but he knew that delving to deep into Tess' past would only cause trouble. At last, he settled for half the truth. "She had a different family before Kyle and the Sheriff. She kept their last name."

"How did things end up so differently for her? I mean, you, Isabel, and Michael, you all are friends. You hang out together and everything, but Tess isn't part of your group. How did that happen? Why did she come to Roswell at a different time?"

"She came out of her pod a little later than we did," Max replied. "As for why we aren't friends…I don't know. It just happened."

"Pods?" Liz asked, confused. "You were in pods?"

"Incubation pods," Max explained. He grinned at Liz. "Think about it, Liz. The spaceship crashed in 1947, and I am only 16. I had to be somewhere for all those years, didn't I?"

Liz blinked and nodded. "Yeah, I didn't think of that. So, where are you from?"

"I don't know," Max admitted. He walked over to the window and pulled back the shades. "Somewhere up there, I guess." He gestured to the inky black sky with its thousands of twinkling stars. He sighed and leaned his head on the cold glass. "Wish I knew, though..." Max continued. He lapsed into silence, and Liz sensed that he wasn't going to delve into the issue any further.

"I guess I had better go…" Liz turned and stepped past Max to the window. She reached over to open it, her hand accidentally brushing against his arm. A shot of electricity ran up her arm. She shivered, and turned wide eyes towards Max.

Max swallowed and tried to ignore the connection he was feeling. He pushed the window opened, and Liz quickly climbed out of it and dropped to the ground below. She waved goodbye to Max, and hurried over to the sidewalk.

A figure turned the corner just as she stepped onto the sidewalk and into the glow of the streetlamp. The figure stared at her for a moment, then turned and looked over at the Evan's house. Liz frowned, and squinted through the darkness, trying to figure out who it was.

"Liz?" the voice called out to her.

Liz heart froze.

It was Kyle.

"What are you doing climbing out of Evan's window in the middle of the night?" Kyle demanded as he walked over towards his girlfriend. His eyes were narrowed in suspicion and ill disguised pain.

"I…uh…I just came over to talk to…" Liz cursed mentally that she was unable to come up with a good reason for her midnight excursion.

"You came over here in the middle of the night to talk to Evans?" Kyle asked, raising his eyebrows. "Come on, Liz, I'm not that stupid. What is going on?"

"Nothing!" Liz replied quickly, her voice unnaturally high. "Nothing, Kyle, I swear. Max and I were just talking."

Kyle frowned and looked over at the Evans' house. "You've been secretive and distant for a while, Liz. You don't talk to me anymore, you barely even look at me. You've been pulling away. Is it because of this? Are you seeing Evans?"

"NO!" Liz cried, wondering at the same times why she was denying it so vehemently. She didn't want to hurt Kyle, but some part of her had to admit that she didn't want to continue the relationship anymore. "Kyle, I just came here to talk to Max. Nothing else. Nothing happened, I swear."

"Then why did you climb out the window? If you were just going to talk?" Kyle argued back. He gestured to the front door and said sarcastically, "Most of us, we use doors."

Liz swallowed and looked away. "Kyle, please listen to me. Nothing happened."

"Save it, Liz," Kyle snapped. "I thought you would have the decency to come to me and tell me you wanted to break up before you went out with someone else, but obviously, I was wrong." He turned and stalked away, and Liz stood on sidewalk, staring after him.

* * *

Next Chapter: Means and Ends 

Due: Tuesday 11/15


	6. Means and Ends

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Okay, I really am not trying to villianize Max, or turn him into the jerk he was on the show, but my frustration at him just keeps coming out. For those of you who like Max, I'll try to make an effort to make him better in further chapters.

Re: Mony19: Now, you hit on a major point of the story, which will come up in later chapters: Tess' friends. She does have her own friends (some of whom are nice, and some of whom are your typical 'popular' snobs) so she doesn't really hang out with the other pod-people. There is sort of a communication gap going on between them. It will get better. It will get worse first, but it will get better. As for Alex, he was only trying to protect Liz, so at least he had good intentions. Liz was an idiot for writing it all down, but I always thought that. I never understood why she had to have a journal in the show. It would only cause problems. And Max...well, if you read the Author's note for the next chapter of my other story (The Crucible), you'll see how I feel about Max. :)

Re: Jade121: Michael is more sympathetic to Tess, but he doesn't actually like her. He puts up with her bitchiness (which will come out in this chapter and more in later chapters) more than the others because he sees just how much she goes through to keep them safe and realizes that her superficiality is just a mask. Also, unlike Max and Isabel, but more like Tess, he isn't desperate for a normal life. They both realize that they are not normal, and never will be, and they deal with it. And about Liz...well, I actually did like her okay until season three. Then her character went down hill.

As always, please read and review.

* * *

Chapter Five: Means and Ends

"So then, she has the nerve to tell me that nothing happened! As if that could actually be true," Kyle scoffed, finishing his story. It was early the following morning, and Kyle was still seething from the events of the night before.

A very bored Tess finished dabbing concealer under her eyes and glanced over at Kyle. "So Liz Parker is dumping you for Max Evans? Well…she sure has good taste in boys." She rolled her eyes in sarcasm and stepped out of the bathroom.

"Do you think that she was telling the truth?" Kyle asked hesitantly. "Maybe I was to hasty to judge… I mean…maybe it really was nothing."

"Kyle, when you catch your girlfriend climbing out of the window of another guy's house in the middle of the night, trust me, it isn't nothing," Tess replied, disappearing into he kitchen.

Kyle splashed water on his face and ran a comb through his hair. He turned to dry his hands on the hand towel, but lying over the towels was one of Tess' lacy pink bras. "Tess!" he yelled. "How many times do I have to tell you not to leave your undergarments in the bathroom. I don't want to stare at your bra every morning."

"Which is funny, considering that every guy at school would probably kill for that view," Tess shouted back from the kitchen.

"But they had better not be getting it," a strict voice snapped. Tess poked her head out of the kitchen and glanced over to see Valenti stepping out of his bedroom, carrying a briefcase under one arm.

"Relax, Jim," she replied. She walked back to the bathroom, grabbed the bra, and headed to her room. "No one is getting _anything_ from me."

"How was your night?" Valenti asked, turning towards Kyle. "Sorry I got home so late. I was stuck at the office until one in the morning, doing some last minute work on the shooting."

"Studying the fabric of Liz Parker's uniform?" Tess asked, stepping out of her room again. "You should just burn the outfit, you know. The thing is hideous." She ran a hand through her hair and turned to Kyle. "You ready? We're going to be late for school."

"Yeah, just a sec," Kyle replied. He turned to his father. "I caught Liz climbing out of Max Evan's window last night." He sighed and shook his head. "Thought I knew Liz, but apparently I was wrong."

"Liz was climbing out of Max's window?" Valenti asked.

Tess turned to him, her face kept carefully blank, as the fear began to pound inside her heart. She could almost see the cogs in his head turning… "Kyle, come on. School!"

"What's the rush?" Kyle grumbled. He grabbed his sports jersey and flung it on over his shirt, then looked around for his backpack. "Where's my bag?"

"What did Liz say she was doing at Max's?" Valenti asked. "I thought she didn't know him that well?"

"She said she was talking," Kyle replied, rolling his eyes. His tone left little doubt that he didn't believe her.

Tess looked back and forth between Valenti and Kyle. She swallowed nervously, then shook her head and closed her eyes, trying to gather her wits. A moment later, and idea popped into her head.

Tess opened her eyes and turned to Valenti. "I think it was pretty obvious what Liz was doing at Max's," she said, her tone full of suggestion.

"Liz and Max…?" Valenti asked, surprised. "But I thought…Liz never seemed like the kind of girl who would date two guys at the same time…"

"No, but she could have been just really good at hiding it." Tess turned to Kyle and said, "You know, that probably is the reason she has been avoiding you the past couple days. She was worried you would find out about her and Max."

"I guess…" Kyle replied. He liked Liz, a lot, and he really did not want to believe that she was cheating on him.

"And that is probably why she pretended not to know Max that well when you asked her about him approaching her at the shooting," Tess pointed out to Valenti. "Boy sees his girlfriend get covered in ketchup and runs up to make sure she is okay, accidentally revealing their hidden relationship. Father of girl's other boyfriend starts asking questions, girl panics. Girl wants everyone to think she is a saint, so she lies about secret boyfriend." Tess shrugged. "Standard love triangle story, only add a shooting…"

"Yeah…" Kyle agreed reluctantly. "I guess you are right." He grinned suddenly and turned to his father. "Not quite as exciting as your conspiracy theory, but oh well. Not everyone can be an alien, right?"

"Oh, were you still on the whole Liz is an alien thing, Jim?" Tess asked. She laughed softly. "I don't think she is an alien. She is apparently pretty lousy at keeping secrets."

Valenti looked back and forth between Tess and Kyle. They were, of course, right. this was the logical explanation. He sighed and pointed to a bag sitting behind the sofa. "There's your backpack, Kyle."

"Oh, thanks," Kyle replied, walking over and grabbing the bag. "See you, Dad."

"See you two later," Valenti replied.

Tess and Kyle walked over to the door, then Kyle turned to Tess and said, "I guess you were right about Liz after all. I should have picked a better girl." He sounded so heartbroken that Tess had to look away so that he wouldn't see the guilt on her face.

* * *

Maria turned her head slightly so that she could better overhear the conversation of the two girls' behind her. She strained, trying to catch the words. 

"That's right, that's what I heard."

"Liz Parker? I never picture her as someone who would do that."

"I know. What a sleaze, dating two guys at once like that. And to think that she actually chose Max Evans over Kyle Valenti."

"Well, she has lousy taste. I heard that Kyle caught her climbing out of Max's window."

Maria frowned and resisted the urge to bash in the two girls' mouths for talking about Liz like that, then she turned and hurried away to find Liz.

* * *

"Liz, hey, Liz!" Alex called as he ran down the hallway. He skidded to a stop in front of the brunette, and shot her a brief smile. "Got a minute?" 

"Well, I was just talking to Max…" Liz replied quietly, gesturing towards Max and looking at the floor. She still felt guilty about snapping at Alex before, and how no idea how she was supposed to face him.

Alex turned to Max and stared at him, as though seeing him for the first time. It was hard to believe that this unassuming guy was really an alien. An alien with powers.

"Oh…" Alex frowned, and then said, "Well, I actually probably should talk to both of you? Can we go into the band room?"

Max and Liz exchanged a quick look, then both nodded and followed Alex into the nearby band room. Alex grabbed a chair and pulled it towards him, then sat down. Liz and Max followed, then turned towards Alex expectantly.

"About your uniform," Alex started, and Liz's head snapped up.

"Alex, I'm sorry about snapping at you earlier, I really am. But I'm telling you, nothing happened. You're worried over nothing."

"I know that isn't true," Alex said. When Liz opened her mouth to argue, Alex held up his hand and continued, "I know it isn't true because I went back to your room yesterday and looked at the dress. It was different, it didn't have blood or a bullet hole on it."

"You broke into my room?" Liz demanded.

"It gets worse," Alex whispered, looking at his interlocking fingers and refusing to meet Liz's concerned eyes.

Liz shot an involuntary glance over and Max then said, "What do you mean, Alex? What did you do?"

"I read your journal."

Liz's blood suddenly went ice-cold. She stared at Alex for a moment, unable to understand what he had said. "You what?" she demanded. "You looked at my journal?"

"Liz? What was in your journal?" Max asked quietly, speaking up for the first time. his brown eyes fixed on Liz, wide with fear.

"Everything," Liz whispered. She looked away, unable to meet Max's eyes. How could she have been so stupid to write everything down?

Alex looked at Liz and shook his head. "I thought it was a great fictional story. Imaginative. But then I remembered, you don't have an imagination. This was real. Max really…healed you."

Max and Liz both denied it at the same time. "No!"

"Alex, it was just a story," Liz said, trying in vain to come up with a way to change what had just happened. "What you read, it wasn't real…"

"I went to the Sheriff," Alex said.

Max jumped out of his seat and looked about wildly, as though expecting the FBI to suddenly jump out him. His face was drawn and pale. Had he been wrong about trusting Liz with the secret? Had he condemned them all to a fate worse than death?

"I never told him," Alex continued. "I ran into Tess first."

Two sets of eyes turned towards him, each reflecting surprise and apprehension. Tess was never a good person to cross, especially not with a secret of this magnitude.

"I told her what I knew." Alex began to shiver, involuntarily afraid. "She…"

"What did she do to you?" Max asked, wondering how far Tess would have gone to keep their secret safe.

"Nothing. She just talked. She told me horrible things would happen to Liz if I told anyone," Alex replied truthfully. He shivered again and stood up.

"She threatened you? She threatened me?" Liz demanded.

"No. It was a warning. She wasn't the one who was going to do the horrible things. She said they would take you away and dissect you to see if Max had changed you. She said…" Alex broke off and shook his head. He walked over to the window and stared up at the blue sky. "She said horrible things would happen."

"They will," Max replied softly. He glanced over at Liz. "That's why it wasn't a good idea for Liz to know. And now you are in danger as well."

"I didn't tell. I won't tell," Alex said, turning towards Max. "You aren't…evil…are you?"

"No," Max said. "I'm just Max Evans."

Alex nodded and sighed. "I should get to class." He turned and hurried from the room.

"I've never seen Alex that freaked," Liz commented after a moment of silence.

"I don't think it was all him," Max replied. At Liz's confused look, he hesitated, then said, "I guess Tess really got to him. Look, I've got to go, I'll see you later okay?"

Liz nodded, and Max left the room.

As he walked down the hallway, he put it on his mental list to have a little chat with Tess. He knew perfectly well what had scared Alex so much. It hadn't just been Tess' words, but her powers as well. She had placed fear in his mind. Her tactic may have worked, but still, she had messed with Alex's mind. Liz and Alex would be furious if they found out.

The ends don't justify the means.

* * *

Maria dropped into a seat next to Liz and Alex at the lunch table and said without preamble, "Did you know there is a rumor going around school that you were dating Max Evans behind Kyle's back? That Kyle found out and you two had a row?" 

Liz looked up, surprised. "What? No, I had no idea. How did that rumor get started?"

"So…it isn't true?" Maria asked. She shot a quick look at Alex. She and Alex had been dating in secret, so it was quite possible that Liz had been too. Of course, Liz already had a boyfriend and would never cheat on him.

Right?

"Of course not!" Liz replied, shocked. "I can't believe that anyone would think that." She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering Kyle's face as he saw her climb out of Max's window. He had been furious. But Kyle was not someone to start rumors. Someone else must have started the rumor. Someone who knew that Liz had gone to see Max last night, knew Kyle had seen them, and didn't care about Liz's reputation.

Tess.

Liz opened her eyes and glanced over at Max, Isabel, and Michael's table. Max and Michael were talking, leaning towards one another. Max's eyes kept flicking over to Liz, while Michael kept nodding towards the table that Kyle was sitting at. So apparently Liz was not the only one just be informed of the new rumor.

Max pulled away from Michael and straightened up, and Liz could see the fury in his eyes. He turned and glared openly at Tess. The petite blonde met his eyes and raised an eyebrow. He jerked his head to one side, then got up and walked away.

Liz watched the entire interaction with interest. A moment later, Tess got up and left her table. She walked towards the direction Max had gone. As she passed Michael and Isabel, Isabel said something to her. Tess ignored the other alien girl.

"Earth to Liz!" Maria said, waiving a hand in front of her friend's face. "You okay?"

"Yeah…I got to go…" Liz got up and walked away quickly, following Tess and Max.

Maria stared at the direction her best friend had gone and turned to Alex. "Why do I feel like I am losing my best friend?"

"Maria, Liz is just worried about her reputation right now. She'll come back and talk to you in a minute," Alex replied distractedly. He had seen the silent conversation between Max and Tess, and knew what it meant.

Tess had started the rumors.

Maria shook her head and looked away from Alex. "No, Alex, she won't just come back in a minute. She's been pulling away from me for a while now. I can't talk to her, I can't get through to her…I just feel like I am loosing my best friend and there isn't anything I can do to stop it!"

Alex reached out to put a comforting hand on Maria's shoulder, while looking at the table guiltily. He was part of the reason that Maria didn't know what was going on, he was keeping secrets from her now as well.

"Just promise me I won't lose you too, okay?" Maria said heavily, glancing over at Alex and resigning herself to not knowing what was going on with Liz.

"I promise," Alex said, his throat suddenly dry. He hoped it was a promise he could keep.

* * *

Liz paused in the hallway and glanced around. She saw Max turning the corner at the other end of the hallway and disappearing out of sight. She hurried after him, her breath caught in her throat. Pausing at the corner, she peered around in time to see Max step into an empty classroom. 

She walked over to the door of the classroom and eased it open a fraction, then sat down on the floor by the door and rested her head against the wall. If she strained enough, she could just hear the conversation.

"She'll get over it," Tess was saying. Her tone was causal and mocking. "It isn't as though it's going to keep her out of Harvard."

"That isn't the point, Tess!" Max's voice was full of barely contained fury.

"The what is the point?" Tess shot back. "Enlighten me, Oh Great One. Spare a moment of your oh-so precious time to explain to the mere peasant here what exactly the point is?"

Liz marveled at Tess' ability to fit so much contempt into her voice.

"Why are you doing this? Ruining Liz's reputation, scaring Alex…and don't think I don't know what you did to him!"

Liz sat up abruptly, holding her breath. Had Tess done something Alex? Was Alex okay? Was he in any danger? If Tess had hurt him, Liz swore she would…

"Alex will get over it as well," Tess' reply came calmly. "It isn't like I permanently screwed up his mind. A little fear to…_reiterate_ the danger we are all in if he tells."

"You can't play with people's minds, Tess," Max admonished angrily.

"Well, actually, I can," Tess replied softly. "That _is_ my power."

"Gift," came Max's automatic correction.

"Whatever," Tess replied dismissively. "Isabel isn't here to harp on that, I'll call it a power if I want to." There was a silence, then Tess said, "Things are worse than you realize, Max. I'm just trying to keep you three safe. Although sometimes I wonder why I bother." Her voice was tinged with bitterness.

Liz pulled herself to her feet, thinking. Tess could control people's minds? She could put fear and other emotions in them? Could she do other things as well? Could she make people act against their will, or make them think they see things that aren't there, or…

_And Tess? What are here gifts?_

_I can't tell you that one._

_Why not?_

_You aren't ready to know._

Tess could control minds.

Liz yanked the door to the room open and stepped inside. Tess and Max were at the front of the classroom, Tess sitting on a stool, and Max leaning against the teacher's desk, his arms crossed in front of him. He was glaring at Tess, who was looking up at him with a supremely bored expression on her pretty features. They both turned and looked over at Liz when she entered. Max's face instantly took on an expression of worry and guilt, but Tess continued to merely look bored.

Liz was shaking with pent up fury and fear as she glared at the petite alien. "You played with Alex's mind?" she demanded, darting across the room towards Tess. "How dare you?"

"Well, aren't you the protective one?" Tess remarked idly as she pushed herself off of the stool and stood up. "What if I did? What are you going to do about it?"

"Tess!" Max hissed, interceding quickly. "We'll talk later, okay?"

"We don't have anything to talk about, Max," Tess replied wearily. "I am long since the age where I actually would have cared what you thought."

"How did you do it? How do you play with people's minds? What can you do? Can you control them completely?" Liz asked, feeling a sudden morbid curiosity.

Tess turned and looked at Liz, and all of a sudden Max jumped to his feet and walked over to Liz. He grabbed her around the waist and kissed her passionately. The world began to spin around her and she saw flashes of stars, of mountains and water, of a dark night sky. Then she felt a piercing hot pain in her stomach as a bullet ripped through he body, and she crumpled to the floor, crying in agony. Blood spilled out over her clothes, and she twisted around to look up at the door, gasping in horror when she saw it was Maria standing there, holding the gun.

And then it all stopped. And she found she was lying on the floor of the classroom, shivering with fear and pain that was not real, while Max leaned over her, concern on his face, and Tess watched with detached amusement.

"That is what I can do," Tess said. Then she walked past Liz and out of the classroom.

For a moment, Max and Liz stayed there in silence, listening to the echo if Tess' footsteps in the hall outside. Then Liz slowly got up, and looked down at her stomach. The pain had been so real, the gunshot, the horror of seeing Maria with the gun, the passion as Max kissed her… It had all been so real.

"Liz," Max said gently, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder.

She pulled away from him, and stared around her with wild eyes. "I have to go," she whispered, and then turned and all but ran from the room. Max stared after her, his eyes dark and worried.

* * *

Isabel grabbed her bag from her locker and glanced over at Michael. He was standing next to her, leaning against the wall, staring at something over her shoulder. She turned and caught a glimpse of Liz, who was walking by them, determinedly avoiding their gaze. 

"What do you think happened?" Michael murmured, trying to keep his voice casual.

But Isabel knew better. She could see the fear in his eyes. "I don't know," she answered honestly. "But she went after Tess and Max at lunch, and God only knows what Tess said to her. Max hasn't spoken to me at all since then, he's been moody and irritable."

"Liz is probably giving him the cold shoulder," Michael said. "That's what put him in such a foul mood."

"She looks freaked," Isabel said, her eyes following Liz down the hallway. She shook her head and closed her locker. "Come on, let's go. We can worry about Liz later. I just want to get out of school."

Michael nodded and followed her towards the doors to the school. The two stepped out into the parking lot, and Isabel blinked in the bright light. She glanced around the parking lot, watching the student body mingle as they headed towards their cars. She remembered the first time she had realized that, not only was she different from all of the other students, but she was _never_ going to be the same as them.

"Come on, Izzy," Michael said, leading his friend down the steps. Isabel followed slowly, her mind on other matters. They had crossed the parking lot and stood next to Max's Jeep, waiting for him to arrive and open the car.

A minute later, Max appeared, hurrying towards them. He opened the door without a word and gestured for the two to take their seats. Isabel and Michael exchanged a glance, but obeyed the unspoken request. Once they had all buckled their seatbelts, Max started the engine.

The sound of knuckles on the window caused all three to look over at the driver's side of the car.

Tess was standing there.

Max rolled down the window and demanded harshly, "What do you want?"

"Did you tell them about Alex?" Tess asked, nodding towards Isabel and Michael.

"Not yet," Max said. "I was going to at lunch, but a few other things got in the way," Max snapped in annoyance.

"What about Alex?" Michael asked, worried.

Tess ignored him. "This isn't my fault, Max. I'm just trying to solve the problem. And by the way, it isn't looking so good for you three." Her words were hard and filled with coldness.

"Us four, don't you mean? We are in this together," Isabel pointed out.

"Are we?" Tess asked. She glanced from Isabel to Michael, then back at Max. "_My_ adoption file wasn't pulled."

"What?" Michael demanded.

"I was going to tell you, before _Lizzie_ interrupted us," Tess said, addressing Max. Michael flinched at being ignored, but said nothing. "He pulled your adoption file, Max. Jim has the files for you and Isabel, and Michael's foster care file."

Max paled, Isabel stared at Tess, her mouth open, and Michael swallowed nervously. Tess turned and glanced around the parking lot. "I can't be seen with you too long, it would ruin my reputation," she said casually. "I should go."

"Oh, poor Tessie worried about losing popularity?" Michael snapped.

When Tess turned back to look at him, her eyes were serious, and her voice had lost its mocking and superior tone. "You don't get it, do you? Jim suspects you. And I've done all I can separate myself from you in his eyes, so that he won't suspect me as I try to save your skin. But if I get seen being too friendly with you three, it will get back to Kyle. And somehow it will get from Kyle to Jim, and then…" Tess paused for a moment, letting the other aliens infer her meaning, then said pointedly, "There are a lot of things I could lose besides _popularity_, Michael. There are a lot of things we all will lose."

She turned and walked away without another word.

There was a silence in the car, then Isabel turned to Max. "What were you going to tell us about Alex?"

Max sighed and turned the engine on. "He knows about us," he said slowly, cringing slightly as Isabel's eyes went wide and Michael opened his mouth in anger.

* * *

Tess walked over to her car and opened the passenger door. She slipped into the seat and closed the door shut, watching as Kyle got into the car as well. She folded her arms across her chest and stared out her window at the school parking lot. School was finally over. 

The two drove in silence for a while. Kyle was lost in his thoughts about football, Liz, and who he was going to date in replace of her, and Tess was busy worrying about exposure, and all the other problems that seemed to continually plague her.

"What happened to your grandfather?" Tess asked, abruptly, turning towards Kyle.

Kyle took his eyes off the road for a moment to glance over at her and shrugged. "Not much. He went crazy on the whole chasing aliens thing and lost his job. He's just a psycho in a nursing home now."

"This was all before I met him." Tess said. It was not a question, but Kyle answered anyway.

"He lost his job before I was born. Before Dad and my mom were even married. He entered the nursing home when I was little, four or five, I think. I don't have any real memories of him…"

Tess lapsed into silence for a moment, thinking about Kyle's words. She turned her face towards the window and stared out at the Roswell desert in the distance. She had to play this next part carefully if her plan was going to work…

"You think Jim is going down that road?" Tess asked, trying to keep her voice diffident. She chanced a quick glance at Kyle and saw that his hands were tightened around the steering wheel. She had hit a nerve.

"What makes you ask that?" Kyle questioned.

"He's never home, always working. He's trying to prove that the shooting last week was somehow related to aliens, and…I mean, come on, this may be Roswell, but aliens…" Tess swallowed and leaned her head against the window.

Kyle nodded and thought over Tess' words. "I don't want him to follow in his father's footsteps. Become crazy, lose his reputation. He's got a family and all."

Tess nodded and said, "Yeah…"

There was a silence, then Kyle turned to Tess and narrowed his eyes. "This is probably the most sincere conversation I have had with you in the eight years you've been here. What gives?"

Tess shrugged and carefully schooled her face into an expression that looked as though she was trying to be casual. "I'm just…worried, you know." Her tone was light, just light enough that it would cause Kyle to become suspicious.

Kyle stared at his foster sister, than turned his eyes back to the road. For Tess to admit worry about anything, even casually, was huge. And the fact that she had been worried about the family… Kyle sighed and shook his head. He would talk to his Dad, get him to drop the whole alien thing.

Tess licked her lips and turned away from Kyle again. She knew Kyle would talk to his father. She knew he would try to get Jim to stop the investigation. She didn't know if it would be enough, but if it wasn't…she would deal with each problem as they arose.

She had kept Alex from spilling the secret. She was working on stopping Jim, and she knew she was at least putting some doubt into his mind. She had kept them safe, and that was more important than anything else. Who cared if she had to lie and manipulate her way through it? As long as they were safe, nothing else mattered.

So why did she feel so guilty?

* * *

Next Chapter: The Rules of the Game 

Due Date: Sunday 11/20


	7. The Rules of the Game

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Hello all. Okay, so I checked my hits, and saw that there were a lot of people reading this story, but very few reviews (I am a very new member of this website and I didn't realize that you could check things like how many hits your stories got, or how many people have put your stories on their alert list, and I was really excited when I figured that out-yes, I am a dork). Now, as long as people are reading, I don't actually mind not getting reviews (although I always prefer hearing what people think), but I did want to take a general consensus on something. So if you all could review this chapter, that would be awsome. Okay, here is what I want to know:

What do you ship? As I said before, this will be CC, but I am going to have each CC couple take a while to get to actual coupleship. Obviously, relationships don't just appear over night. But I did want to know, so that I can work those relationships (when the come) into the stories more. Max and Liz will be the first in my story that become a real 'couple,' followed by Maria and Michael, and then Alex and Isabel. And for all of you UC shipers, I will have a few UC moments, especially in the earlier chapters before the CC relationships are formed and after the Destiny revelation when they are all trying to figure out what to do, although no actual ships. And does anyone have any ships that they can't abide and I should try to avoid in my UC moments? I can't guarantee anything, but I'll do my best to please.

As always, read and review

* * *

Chapter Six: The Rules of the Game

_Rule One of Survival: Never tell the secret to anyone outside the group _

Liz pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and glanced around the park. She was sitting on one of the stone benches, thinking about everything that had happened the day before. Kyle broke up with her. Alex found out about the aliens. Tess could control minds.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Liz looked up, startled. She hadn't noticed Alex approach, but now he was standing right next to her, his arms folded across his chest. He was staring at her in concern.

"Just thinking about how screwed up everything is," she answered honestly. "I wish…I wish things could just go back to the way they were before, when I was dating Kyle and aliens were only the products of overly imaginative psychopaths."

_Rule Two of Survival: Never waste time wishing for normalicy, you won't get it. _

Alex laughed and dropped down onto the bench next to Liz. "Yeah, that would be nice." He frowned for a moment, then shook his head and said, "Why are you so worried about it now? You didn't seem as concerned yesterday."

"Yesterday I didn't know that Tess could control people's minds," Liz replied bitterly. She rubbed her eyes and said, "As if she wasn't scary enough to start with…"

"She can what?" Alex demanded, his eyes wide.

Liz turned and to him, realizing that he didn't know about Tess. She reluctantly revealed the story of her overhearing Max and Tess talking, and cringed slightly when she reached the part about Tess planting fear in Alex's mind.

"She did that?" Alex hissed, shocked. "I can't believe she would do that!" He jumped to his feet angrily and started pacing, his mind instantly conjuring up several scenerios in which Tess used her powers for cruel and malicious actions.

"I can," Liz replied quietly. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "God, I wish this had never happened. I mean, Kyle thinks I cheated on him, Tess has the entire school thinking I'm a slut, Maria knows I'm hiding stuff from her, and Max and I…"

"What about Max and you?" Alex asked sharply, her eyes narrowing shrewdly.

_Rule Three of Survival: Never have a serious relationship with anyone outside the group_

"I like him. I don't know why, but I feel this connection with him. I just…he's an alien."

Alex glanced around nervously and said, "Don't say that in public. We don't want people to know." Even though he knew most of the fear he was feeling was probably artificially planted by Tess, he couldn't help it. He was afraid.

And part of him knew that he had a good reason to be afraid.

"Fine, he's a…Czechoslovakian," Liz snapped back. She shook her head and stood up, starting to pace. "But I mean, we don't know anything about him. What if he is a bad Czechoslovakian? What if he is a killer Czechoslovakian?"

Alex stifled a grin and replied in a mock serious tone, "Well, then you can have him extradited back to Czechoslovakia."

"Alex! I'm serious," Liz admonished, although she couldn't keep the grin from her face. She stopped pacing long enough to hit Alex on the shoulder, then resumed her steps.

"You like Max. You trusted him before, didn't you?" Alex asked softly.

"Yes…" Liz breathed. "Before I really stopped to realize what he was capable of. What they are all capable of. I mean, Max saved my life. But now I just don't know… We don't know anything about these Czechoslovakians. What if they aren't supposed to be here? What if they don't have passports?"

Alex frowned and shook his head. "You sound like a gibbering idiot, Lizzie. Of course they don't have passports."

"You aren't even the tiniest bit worried?" Liz demanded.

"Of course I am worried. But…I don't know, Lizzie. When I talked to Tess before…she seemed scared." Alex paused and seemed to struggle for the right words to express his thoughts. "I know she manipulated me, but I really think she was afraid of what we could do to them by revealing their secrets. We may pose more of a threat to them, then they do to us."

"And Max trusted me enough to tell me his secret," Liz whispered. She closed her eyes and let out an frustrated breath. Everything was just so confusing right now.

"Hey guys," a cheery voice called, and Liz and Alex turned to see Maria walking towards them. "I called over to your house, Liz, and your mom said you had gone to the park. Nice day for a walk, huh?"

"Yeah," Liz replied, smiling. "How are you?"

"Oh, I'm okay, chica," Maria answered, grinning happily. "What are you guys talking about?" she asked, taking a seat next to Alex.

"Stuff," Liz replied.

"Nothing," Alex answered at the same time.

Maria glanced back and forth between the two and felt her good mood slowly dissipate. She was no idiot, she could tell when people where lying to her. "Really?" she asked quietly, her voice carrying an odd tone to it.

"Really," Liz replied firmly. She and Alex exchanged an awkward glance, then Liz continued, "Hey, you want to catch a movie tonight or something?"

_Rule Four of Survival: Do whatever it takes to necessary to survive, and have no regrets _

"Sure, whatever…" Maria replied dejectedly. She hated being out of the loop.

Alex and Liz exchanged another brief glance, and then Liz said, "Well, what movie?" The three of them fell into discussing movies, the temporary problems forgotten.

* * *

Kyle looked up from his homework to see Valenti enter the living room. He watched, his eyes narrowed slightly, as his father picked up a few files from the table and turned to leave. "Where are you going, Dad?" he asked. 

"Work. I've got more to do on this case," Valenti replied, his hand on the doorknob.

"It's the weekend," Kyle protested.

"I still need to work on the case," Valenti replied. "It isn't going to solve itself." He turned to go, twisting the doorknob in his hand.

"Why bother?" Kyle asked quietly. "It isn't like there is anything there." He got up and walked over to his dad. "I mean, Liz was cheating on me with Max, and that is what she was lying to you about. There are no such things as aliens. Do you really want to end up like Grandpa?"

Valenti turned and glanced at Kyle, his eyebrows raised. He frowned slightly and said, "What's gotten into you, Kyle? You've never shown this level of interest in my cases before."

"I'm just worried," Kyle admitted reluctantly. He leaned against the door and looked up at Jim. "I mean, you really are starting to act like Grandpa did, aren't you?" He blinked and then lowered his voice and, with an apprehensive look at the closed door to Tess' room, said, "Even Tess is worried."

"What?" Valenti asked sharply as he too shot a look at Tess' room. He knew Tess was in there, talking on the phone, or getting ready to go out, or whatever it was she did on the weekend. He had half a mind to go in and ask her if she really was worried, but he decided against it. He knew Tess well enough to know she would deny everything.

"She told me on the way home from school yesterday. Dad, she's actually worried about you. Do you have any idea how much it would take for Tess to admit any kind of emotion for us?" Kyle shrugged and repeated, "I just don't want you ending up like Grandpa." He turned and walked back to him homework.

Valenti sighed and rubbed tired eyes. Then he turned and pushed the door open, stepping out into the bright afternoon light. As he walked towards his car, he glanced back at Tess' window and wondered just how stupid he was being.

He would talk to Tess that evening. If she really was worried about him…well, it wasn't like he was getting anywhere on the case anyway.

* * *

Liz looked up at the sharp rap of knuckles on her window. She paused, seeing Max's face behind the glass, then walked over and unlocked the window. She pulled it open and stood aside, allowing Max room to climb through. 

"What are you doing here, Max?" Liz asked quietly, licking her lips. She stared up into his deep brown eyes and shivered, again feeling the connection with him. But she could also picture Tess' cold blue eyes staring at her, filled with smugness and superiority. Tess, who could control minds. Tess who had no compunctions about ruining reputations. Tess who had played with Alex's mind with out hesitation.

Would Max be like that too?

"I wanted to see how you were. You were really freaked out yesterday," Max answered honestly. "And I wanted to apologize. About whatever Tess did…whatever it was she made you see…"

"You don't need to apologize, Max. It was Tess' fault, not yours," Liz replied, rubbing her eyes. She gestured for Max to take a seat on her bed, which he did, then she said, "Although if you could get Tess to apologize…"

"I doubt it," Max said grimly, smiling inwardly at the thought of Tess agreeing to apologize to anyone for anything. "She's Tess. She doesn't do the whole asking for forgiveness thing."

"Did you talk to her?" Liz pressed.

"About what?" Max asked, looked up in confusion.

"About what she did to Alex and I," Liz replied, rolling her eyes.

Max blinked, surprised, and looked away. "No, not yet. I will, later." He hesitated, unsure of what to say. How could he get Liz to understand why he couldn't confront Tess? Things were just to complicated between him and the fourth alien…

"Why not?" Liz demanded angrily, folding her arms over her chest. "Tess just trashed my reputation, and yours for that matter. Why can't you talk to her?"

"And say what, Liz?" Max asked wearily. "Gee, that wasn't real nice of you, Tess. Could you please be nicer to Liz and I? That would be peachy-keen." His voice was layered with sarcasm.

"You could stand up for yourself, for me, for Alex," Liz snapped, irritated.

_Rule Five of Survival: Never cause unecessary arguements during a crisis  
_

"Things with Tess are…problematic. Especially right now. I don't want to talk to her until we are out of this mess," Max explained. "We have too much to deal with as it is."

"Not talking to Tess is only going to cause more problems, Max. Why can't you see that?" Liz insisted. "She used her powers on Alex!" She turned away from Max and shook her head in disgust. "The only reason you won't talk to Tess is because you are afraid of her. Grow a backbone!"

Max flushed scarlet and stood up angrily. He glared at Liz and said, "Liz, you've known about this secret for a few days. Michael, Isabel, Tess and I have been dealing with it for several years. You can't just all of a sudden demand that I do things and pretend you understand the dynamics of our group. We don't confront Tess. That is just the way it works."

"What, do you have rules?" Liz replied sarcastically. "A little list of things you can and can't do?" She shook her head in exasperation.

"Yes!" Max hissed. "For all intents and purposes, we do have rules." He took a breath and tried to control his temper. He did not come here to yell at Liz. "Look, I'm sorry. I'll talk to Tess later, after this is all over. But I can't do it right now, and I need you to understand that. I need you to trust that I know what I am doing."

"I do trust you," Liz admitted, somewhat reluctantly. "It's Tess I don't trust."

_Rule Six of Survival: Trust each other implicitly and without hesitation _

"You should," Max replied. "I trust her." He said it simply, as though it was a fact. And to him it was. Tess was trustworthy, and he would never doubt that.

Liz looked at him incredulously, then shrugged. "If she is so trustworthy, why won't you talk to her now? What are you afraid she will do?"

"Why can't you just drop it?" Max asked wearily. "I didn't come here to argue with you. I came here to see how you were doing. I was worried about you." He reached out and took Liz's arm.

Liz flinched as her skin began to crawl with goose bumps. The connection was strong, and as she stared up at Max, she felt her annoyance with him slowly disappear. He was leaning towards her, and she closed her eyes, waiting for something to happen.

He kissed her.

_Rule Three of Survival: Never have a serious relationship with anyone outside the group_

Stars burst behind her eyes, a flash of a boy running across a playground, three kids sitting on the swings while a forth one stood by and watched, a expanse of empty blackness, blood on the ground, a flash of light, dead eyes staring blankly ahead. Pain.

Liz pulled back abruptly and looked up at Max with wide eyes. But Max wasn't looking at her. He was focusing on something behind and just to the right of Liz. Liz turned and swallowed nervously as she stared at the figure standing in the doorway.

It was Maria.

Maria scowled at the two of them, turned on her heal, and stormed down the stairs. Liz shot an apologetic look at her best friend and ran down the stairs after her best friend. "Maria, wait!" she called.

Maria paused at the last step and glared at Liz. "You told me there was nothing between you and Max. You looked me in the eye and told me that you weren't seeing him! You _lied_ to me." She backed away from Liz and turned to go again, furious and hurt.

"Maria, it isn't like that," Liz said quickly, reaching out and grabbing Maria's arm. "Max and I aren't together."

"You were just locking lips with him for the hell of it?" Maria snapped angrily. "You want to cheat on Kyle, fine. You want to go out with Max, fine. But why couldn't you tell me? You don't tell me anything anymore. Not since the shooting…"

Liz sighed and replied, "Don't start with the shooting again, Maria. Nothing happened."

Maria glared at her best friend and remained silent for a long time. Finally, she nodded and said, "Whatever you say, Liz." Her voice was cold and her eyes were filled with hurt. She turned on her heel and disappeared around the corner.

Liz watched her go, then glanced up the stairs to where Max had just appeared. He was looking at her with pity in his eyes, and she knew he had overheard the conversation.

"It would be easier if I could just tell her the truth," Liz muttered under her breath.

"You can't," Max said sharply. Liz looked up at him, and he held her gaze for a beat, then repeated in a softer tone, "You can't."

_Rule One of Survival: Never tell the secret to anyone outside the group _

"Another rule?" Liz snapped. Max stared at her, his eyes unreadable, then shrugged. Liz nodded wearily and replied, "Okay...," then pushed past him, making her way up the stairs to her room. As she brushed against Max on the steps, she felt another surge of energy flow through her arm. She hesitaited, then glanced around to make sure they were not being overheard and whispered, "Did you get flashes?"

"Flashes?" Max questioned, confused. "What are you talking about?"

"When we kissed," Liz explained. She lead him back into her room and closed the door. "Did you get flashes of things? Stars and blood, and you as a little kid…"

"No," Max replied, confused. "I saw you. Like I did when I healed you… I saw your past."

Liz swallowed apprehensively and replied, "Well, I think I just saw your past." Max's eyes widened in surprise and he sat down on the bed. Liz took the seat next to him and quickly described her flashes. As she did so, she couldn't help but think that this was something she would have normally talked to Maria about.

* * *

"Jim. Here to stare at the counter and search for missing bullets some more?" Mr. Parker asked good naturedly as Valenti entered the diner. 

Valenti looked up in surprise and laughed. "No, actually, I am here for some food." He took a seat at the counter and smiled at Mr. Parker, who handed him a menu. "Thank you. Anything you would recommend?"

Mr. Parker shrugged and replied, "Everything here is good." He turned to help a few more customers and Valenti stared at he menu in silence. After a moment, Mr. Parker turned back to Valenti and said, "I haven't seen you or Kyle much lately. You two haven't been by the diner."

Valenti nodded and explained, "Well, I've been caught up in work quite a bit, and I think Kyle is avoiding Liz. You know, after what happened and all, I think he was upset…"

"What happened?" Mr. Parker asked, confused. As far as he knew, Liz and Kyle were still happily dating.

Valenti looked up in surprise. "You know, with Max Evans?" he asked, confused. He had assumed that the Parkers knew that Liz was now seeing Max. Apparently he was wrong.

"What about Max?" Mr. Parker questioned. He leaned on the counter and stared at Valenti thoughtfully, thinking about Max. He knew the Evans fairly well, but their children and Liz had never been particularly close, so he had not gotten to know Max or Isabel.

Valenti shifted, clearly uncomfortable. "Uh…sorry, I just assumed you knew…it really isn't my place to tell you…ask Liz," he finished lamely. He put the menu back down on the counter and got up quickly. "I guess I'm not really hungry after all. I'll see you around."

And he turned and left the diner, leaving a very confused Mr. Parker in his wake.

* * *

"Isabel, Max, dinner," Mrs. Evans called as she walked into the living room. 

Max glanced up at his mother quickly and broke off mid-sentence. He had been in the middle of telling Isabel and Michael about the flashes Liz had seen when they had kissed. He glanced at his mother worriedly, but she showed no sign of having overheard some of the conversation.

"I'd better get going," Michael said, standing up. "You guys have a nice dinner."

"Oh, why don't you stay for dinner, Michael?" Mrs. Evans asked, shooting a quick, knowing glance at Isabel. Isabel blushed scarlet and glared at her mother, but Mrs. Evans continued unperturbed, "I'm sure Max and Isabel would enjoy your company."

"No, thank you," Michael replied. "I don't want to impose."

"Don't be silly," Mrs. Evans said, waving away his concerns. "I'll set out an extra place setting." She turned and disappeared into the kitchen.

Isabel glanced at Michael and shook her head in annoyance. "I am going to kill her," she muttered under her breath.

"You don't want me to stay for dinner?" Michael asked, confused. Isabel was generally the one who asked him to stay the most because she hated the way he always had to cook for Hank.

_Rule Seven of Survival: One person's problem is everyone's problem _

"No, it isn't that," Isabel stammered. She shot a pleading look at Max, asking him to interfere on her behalf.

Max, however, seemed to enjoy his sister's momentary discomfort and said to Michael in a conspiratorially tone, "Mom thinks you two are making your own flashes."

"What?" Michael asked, unsure of Max's meaning. He glanced in between the two siblings, wondering if either was going to give a better explanation. "What do you mean? How could Isabel and I be making flashes?"

Max rolled his eyes and said, "I really am going to have to spell it out for you, aren't I?"

"Max Evans, don't you dare!" Isabel hissed, grabbing a pillow and throwing it at her brother. But Max just laughed, ducked the pillow, and turned back to Michael.

"My mom thinks you and Isabel are dating," he said bluntly.

Michael's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open in astonishment, then he turned to Isabel. "How does she think that? Why does she think that? Why did you _let _her think that?"

_Rule Eight of Survival: Never date anyone within the group, bad break-ups cause unecessary problems  
_

"I didn't…she just came up with the idea on her own!" Isabel defended herself. "I tried to tell her she was mistaken, but she wouldn't listen to me." She crossed her arms and glared at the two boys; Max, who was laughing silently at her, and Michael, who was grinning slightly. "It isn't funny!"

"Alright, I've set out the extra place. Go wash your hands," Mrs. Evans said, reappearing in the living room.

Michael winked at Max and walked over to Isabel. He draped his arm over her shoulder and said, "Sure thing, Mrs. Evans." He grinned at an incredulous Isabel and said, "Shall we go find the bathroom?"

Mrs. Evans smiled to herself and walked back into the kitchen. Isabel spun around to face Michael and shoved his arm off of her. "I swear to God, Michael Guerin, I am going to kill you!"

Michael laughed at her threat and headed towards the bathroom. Max grinned sympathetically at his sister and followed Michael. Isabel stood in the room by herself for a moment, then hurried after the two.

"I am going to kill both of you!" she snapped, shoving the door to the bathroom open and hitting Michael and Max on the back of the head. "You can't do this to me. Do you have any idea what Mom is going to be like?"

"Yes," Max replied. "I think it is going to be funny."

"I hate you," Isabel replied.

"Wait, you mean you don't want to date me?" Michael asked, pretending to be hurt. He washed his hands and then stepped out into the hall, allowing Isabel access to the sink. "I'm hurt."

"We can't date," Isabel replied. "It's just wrong."

"Why? Are there rules against it?" Michael shot back, raising his eyebrows and smirking. Although he never thought of Isabel as anything more than a sister, he couldn't help but tease her.

Isabel huffed and replied, "You are going to regret this, Michael. I promise you, I will _make _you regret it."

Michael stared at her in silence for a moment, his gaze appraising. At last, he replied in a serious tone, "I don't doubt that."

* * *

"Hey, Tess," Jim said, walking into the living room of his house. Tess was standing in the door to the kitchen, staring at something he couldn't see. He frowned slightly and walked over to her, followed her gaze, and grimaced. "What is that?" 

"That?" Tess answered mockingly. "That would be Kyle's attempt at cooking."

It was a casserole. At least, Valenti assumed it was supposed to be a casserole. He wasn't actually sure. Some of it looked burnt, some of it looked underdone. He wasn't entirely sure what was in it. He also didn't really want to know.

"Are we eating that?"

"God, I hope not," Tess muttered. She walked over to one of the cupboards and pulled it open. After a moment of searching, she pulled out a package of spaghetti. "I'll make pasta and salad. Don't worry, we'll have something edible."

"Where is Kyle?" Valenti asked as he watched Tess fill a large pot with water. She put it on the stove and turned the burner on before glancing back at Valenti.

"In his room," she replied. There was a silence as she measured out the pasta and set it aside, waiting for the water to boil. Finally, she said hesitantly, "You were gone all day today."

Valenti blinked at her in surprise, hearing the uncertainty in her voice. "I was at work."

"On the weekend?" Tess asked quietly. Her back was turned to Valenti, so he could not see the apprehension that flickered through her eyes. She knew that _everything_ rode on her being able to convince Valenti to drop the case. And the only way to do that was to make sure he didn't get suspicious of her. Which meant she had to have enough the right blend of concern and indifference in her voice…

"Yeah," Valenti replied, remembering his previous conversation with Kyle that morning. "I had work to do."

Tess shot him a withering look and asked, "Find any little green men yet?"

"You think I'm crazy to pursue this?"

"Why would I care?" Tess replied. She shrugged carelessly and dumped the pasta into the now boiling water. She stirred the pasta for a moment, then turned to face Valenti completely. "But yes, I do think you are crazy. Aliens don't exist."

"My father thought differently," Valenti replied.

"And you want to end up like him?" Tess asked, her carrying the slightest hint of worry. Enough that Valenti would pick up on it, but too little to make him suspicious.

"No, I don't want to ruin the family," Valenti replied. "I don't want to break us all apart."

"I doubt that will happen," Tess answered. She set the timer for the pasta, then walked past Valenti into the living room. "I'll get Kyle for dinner. Turn the burner off when the timer goes off and drain the spaghetti."

"Tess?" Valenti asked, deciding to take the direct route with her. "Do you want me to drop the case?"

Tess turned to him, keeping her eyes unreadable. She held his gaze for a beat, then shrugged and repeated, "Why would I care?" In a tone that made it perfectly clear that she _did_ care, but that she would never admit it.

Then she turned and walked towards Kyle's room. She stopped outside his door and took a few calming breaths, wondering when she had gotten so good at manipulation.

_Rule Four of Survival: Do whatever is necessary to survive, and have no regrets_

She knew that Valenti would drop the case. As long as nothing happened to make him more suspicious, he would drop it.

As long as nothing happened…

She pushed the door open and silently stepped into the room. Kyle was muttering to himself in front of his mirror, and he did not notice her entrance. She crept over to the bed and sat down, watching her brother in amusement.

"Do you want to go out on a date?" Kyle asked his mirror. He frowned and shook his head, then lowered his voice and said, "Do you want to go out tonight?" He paused and ran a hand through his hair. Letting out a shaky breath, he tried again, "How about we go out tonight?"

"I don't think the mirror is actually going to answer you."

Kyle spun around and saw that Tess had entered his room and was sitting on his bed. He blinked in surprise, he had not heard her come in. "What are you doing?" he asked harshly.

"Funny, I was going to ask you the same thing," Tess replied, smirking. She nodded to the mirror and said, "So, has the mirror been playing hard to get?"

Kyle rolled his eyes at Tess' sarcasm and said, "If you must know, I'm practicing."

"Practicing what?" Tess demanded. "You don't need to practice acting like an idiot, you do that one pretty well already."

Kyle frowned at his sister and said, "I don't like you, you know that, right?"

"Yes," Tess answered simply. She crossed her legs on the bed and said, "Seriously though, why are you practicing asking someone out?"

"Because the entire school seems to know that Liz was cheating on me with Evans." He glanced at Tess and asked accusingly, "You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"Me? Start rumors? Never," Tess replied.

Kyle rolled his eyes and turned back to the mirror. "I'm going to ask Trudy out on a date."

"Trudy? Trudy McIntire?" Tess said thoughtfully. "She's a cheerleader. Going for the stereotype then?"

Kyle shrugged and walked over to the bed. He took a seat next to Tess and said, "I like her. She seems nice." He looked down at his hands, and saw that he was unconsciously twisting his fingers.

"You're nervous?" Tess asked softly. She looked over at Kyle and shook her head. "Why? Trudy will say yes. You'll go on a date. You will have fun."

"You make it sound so simple," Kyle said slowly.

"It is simple," Tess replied.

"I thought things were simple with Liz, and it turned out I was wrong. What if I am wrong about Trudy?"

Tess grinned and said, "All along I told you not to date Liz. Turned out I was right. Now I am telling you that dating Trudy will turn out well. And when are you going to learn, Kyle, that I am always right?"

Kyle laughed, then sobered up immediately. "I just wish there was a set of guidelines we could follow. You know, something that tells me which girls to ask out and how to go about doing it. A textbook, if you will."

"Well, it isn't _that_ simple," Tess explained. She got up and smiled at Kyle. "But seriously, you worry too much. Just ask Trudy out. I'm sure she'll say yes, but even if she didn't, there are a million other girls who would want to date you." There was a silence, then Tess said, "Come on, dinner's ready."

Kyle's eyes widened in apprehension. "What are we having?"

"I made pasta," Tess answered. She slanted a look at Kyle and continued mercilessly, "Unless of course you wanted to eat whatever that thing you made was."

"It was a casserole," Kyle defended himself, secretly immensely relived that Tess had made something else.

"According to who?" Tess shot back. She turned and walked away, flipping her hair over her shoulders as she did so.

Kyle watched as Tess walked from the room. At the door, the petite blonde looked back at him, and he thought he saw sympathy in her eyes. Her next comment startled him.

"I'm sorry about Liz," she said quietly. "I didn't want that to happen to you."

Then she turned and was gone, and Kyle was left to think about everything that had happened. He got up and walked over to the mirror, then sighed and glanced in the direction Tess had gone. It never ceased to amaze him how nice she could be when she tried, and how cold and haughty she was most of the time. It was as though she had two different personalities, one that showed real emotions, and the other that kept all her darkest secrets burried deep beneath a mask of cool indifference.

_Rule One of Survival: __Never tell the secret to anyone outside the group_

* * *

Next Chapter: And Then There Were Seven 

Due: Sunday 11/27


	8. And Then There Were Seven

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's Note: Thank you to all who answered my question from the last chapter. I only got a few responses, so I am going to leave the question out there for people to answer if they want. So, here's the question:

What do you ship? As I said before, this will be CC, but I am going to have each CC couple take a while to get to actual coupleship. Obviously, relationships don't just appear over night. But I did want to know, so that I can work those relationships (when the come) into the stories more. Max and Liz will be the first in my story that become a real 'couple,' followed by Maria and Michael, and then Alex and Isabel. And for all of you UC shipers, I will have a few UC moments, especially in the earlier chapters before the CC relationships are formed and after the Destiny revelation when they are all trying to figure out what to do, although no actual ships. And does anyone have any ships that they can't abide and I should try to avoid in my UC moments? I can't guarantee anything, but I'll do my best to please.

And while you're at it, can someone explain to me where the terms 'Cliffhanger' and 'Candy' come from? I understand a lot of the others (dreamer, rebel, stargazer, lamptrimmer), but I never got the basis for those names.

Re: Duccia: Thanks for the review. I'll try to have some more cliffhanger moments. And even though Michael and Isabel won't end up together, there will still be a lot of teasing between the two, like in the last chapter. Even though I prefer Maria/Michael for relationships, the interactions between Michael and Isabel were one of my favorite parts of the show.

Re: Trude: Thanks for the review, I'm glad you like the story so far. You won't have to wait long for the next chapter because here it is. :)

Re: Mony19: Thanks for the review. I know you are a rebel, and I am trying to figure out a way to include rebel moments. They will probably show up around when the pod squad finds out about their past life. As for Tess being the queen on her own, and Max and Michael being guards, that is a very intriguing idea and maybe I will write a seperate story about that, but for this one, I think I am going to leave it as it was on the show. In a seperate story, though... You have very good ideas.

Re: starra86: Thanks for the review, I'm glad you like the story, and that you think my characters are close to the show. I am trying to keep them semi-close, although I am taking a lot of liscence with Tess and Kyle since their upbringings are a little different than on the show. Also, if you have a chance sometime, can you answer my previous question (what do you ship?) from above. I know, I am a very demanding person... :)

* * *

Chapter Seven: And Then There Were Seven

"I don't understand? Since when is Liz dating Max Evans?" Mrs. Parker asked as she accepted a cup of tea from Ms. DeLuca. "She was dating Kyle."

"I don't know the entire story," Ms. DeLuca replied grimly, "But I know Maria was upset about the whole thing. She came home yesterday afternoon practically in tears because she said Liz had lied to her about Max." She pursed her lips and said, "I don't understand what has gotten into those girls lately, but they don't seem to be getting along."

"I know what you mean, Amy," Mrs. Parker agreed. She took a sip of tea and continued, "I just wish I knew what was going through their heads. I mean, Lizzie never really confided in me, but lately she's been even more distant."

The two women were silent for a moment, contemplating their daughters. Finally, Mrs. Parker broke the dismal silence and said, "So, Amy, I hear that there might be something between you and Jim?"

Ms. DeLuca narrowed her eyes and said slowly, "That is strictly confidential. How did you find out?"

Mrs. Parker laughed and replied, "I've got my sources." She smiled briefly and continued, "But it is true, then?"

"We've gone out a couple times," Ms. DeLuca reluctantly admitted. "We didn't tell anyone because we don't want Maria and Kyle to know unless it turns into something serious. It would just be too awkward for them."

Mrs. Parker nodded and pressed her lips into a thin line. "Speaking of awkward, do you have any idea what happened with the break up between Kyle and Liz?" she asked, moving back towards their earlier subject. "I've run into Kyle a few times and he won't even look at me."

Ms. DeLuca shrugged. "Must have been a nasty split," she commented. "At least they are young. They'll get over it."

"Too young," Mrs. Parker objected. "They are only sixteen. There is plenty of time for serious relationships, nasty splits, and heartaches later."

* * *

"So…" Kyle said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and trying his best to appear confident and suave. He was standing in front of Trudy's locker, watching as she pulled out her lunch. "So, I was just wondering…?" 

"Yes?" Trudy said, looking up hopefully. She swallowed her anticipation and mentally rebuked herself for getting excited. Kyle probably just wanted to talk to her about class or homework or something. There was no guarantee that he was going to…

Kyle's next set of rushed words cut across her thoughts ."Doyouwanttogooutwithme?"

"What?" Trudy asked, trying to make sense of the words. Her heart started hammering rapidly in her chest.

"Do you want to go out with me?" Kyle repeated, forcing himself to enunciate.

"Like on a date?" Trudy breathed.

"Yeah…if you want," Kyle replied, trying his best to sound causal.

"Sure that sounds nice," Trudy answered. Her heart was now doing cartwheels.

"Great," Kyle replied, relieved. "How about Friday night?" Trudy nodded wordlessly and Kyle continued, "I'll pick you up around seven? We can have dinner and see a movie, if you want."

"Sounds good," Trudy replied. Kyle nodded and walked away, and Trudy turned around and closed her locker door, a grin spreading across her features.

"What are you do happy about?"

Trudy glanced behind her and saw Tess standing there, her arms crossed over her chest. Standing behind her were two of her other friends, Sara and Jessica. "Kyle asked me out on a date," she squealed.

Tess smiled appreciatively and said, "Well, better you than Liz Parker."

"No kidding. Seriously, I don't know what he ever saw in her," Sara added. She twirled a strand of hair around a finger and exchanged a glance with Jessica. "I mean, why go with her when her could have dated _anyone_ else?"

"At least he came to his senses in time," Jessica agreed. "To bad it was you he came to his senses with and not me…"

"You're supposed to be happy for her," Sara chided the other girl, laughing. Trudy and Jessica both grinned.

"Let's get lunch," Tess said, turning and leading the three other girls towards the cafeteria.

As they walked down the hall, Tess caught sight of Liz standing at her locker, talking to Alex and putting her books away. Apparently Jessica saw Liz as well, because she said in a loud voice, "Well, I am happy for you, Trudy. You and Kyle look good together. So much better than him and Ms. Scientist. God only knows what he was thinking going out with her." Sara laughed unkindly at that, Tess rolled her eyes but nodded in agreement, and Trudy blushed.

Trudy shot a quick look at Liz as she passed, and then looked away, uncomfortable. She was nice enough not to want to embarrass Liz in front of the entire school, and was a little ashamed of what Jessica had said.

But these were her friends, so she said nothing.

* * *

"Ignore them," Alex muttered to Liz and the two took seats in the cafeteria. He shot an annoyed look over at the table Tess was sitting at. Tess, Sara, Jessica, and Trudy had been joined by the rest of the popular girls, all of whom were laughing and sending brief, mocking looks over at Liz. 

"Easier said than done," Liz muttered. She stared at her sandwich moodily, not really hungry. "Why can't they just leave me alone?"

"Maybe you should stand up for yourself more?" Alex suggested. "I mean, you are letting them walk all over you. Have you even talked to Tess about the rumors she started?"

"Talked to her? Talked to _Tess_?" Liz asked incredulously. "Are you out of your mind? I am not going near any of them with a ten foot pole. Especially not her."

"Going near who?" a new voice asked.

Alex and Liz looked up to see Maria standing there, holding her lunch in one hand and resting the other on her hip. "Uh…Tess and the other girls," Liz explained briefly, gesturing towards the table where Tess and Trudy were now whispering conspiratorially as they stared openly at Liz. "Kyle asked Trudy out, and…"

"Well, you were cheating on him," Maria replied pointedly. She dropped into the seat next to Alex and continued, "He can move on if he wants."

"Maria," Liz pleaded, "please listen to me. I am sorry I didn't tell you about Max, but I was not cheating on Kyle. When you walked in, it was the first time that Max and I had kissed, and Kyle and I weren't together anymore at that point."

Maria licked her lips and glanced back and forth between Alex and Liz. "Fine," she said reluctantly. "I believe that Tess started vicious rumors about you that aren't true." She grinned slightly and continued, "It isn't that hard to believe the Ice Queen would do something like that."

Liz nodded, relieved that Maria was still speaking to her. She really did not want to lose her best friend.

"But I just don't understand why you couldn't talk to me," Maria said softly. "You are supposed to talk to me about everything. You always have."

"I know," Liz admitted heavily. "I'm sorry, Maria. Things have just been so…weird lately. Can we start over?"

"Yeah," Maria said happily. "We can do that." She leaned in and whispered, "So? What is kissing Max Evans like?"

* * *

Max slammed the door to his locker shut and turned around in time to see a tall jock reached out both hands and shove him backward. He hit the locker and winced in pain, not ready for the attack. "What the hell…?" 

"I was going to ask you the same thing, Evans," the jock replied.

Max blinked and stared at him, recognizing him immediately. "Cliff? What…"

"What the hell made you think you had the right to date Valenti's girl, huh?" Cliff asked coldly, his eyes burning with anger.

"I didn't…this is just a misunderstanding," Max stuttered, backing away. He backed into the metal locker and jumped, cornered.

Three more jocks came up behind Cliff. They all glared at Max and cracked their knuckles menacingly. Max barely had time to register the moving fist before it connected with his face. He winced in pain, but said nothing. The others moved in around Max, trapping him in a half circle.

* * *

Max sat on the hood of his car and watched in annoyance as Isabel let her eyes travel quickly over his bruises. She was quivering in anger, and her soft brown eyes were hardened into slit of pure fury. "We need to put something on those bruises. Arnica and ice." 

"I'm fine, Izzy," Max replied wearily. "Just let it go." He looked around him, trying to avoid the gaze of the other students, many of whom were milling around the parking lot and staring at him openly.

"Let it go?" Isabel asked incredulously. "Let it go? You got beat up! You didn't even do anything wrong."

"They don't know that," Max pointed out. "The jocks thought I had taken Liz away from Kyle." He shrugged, then winced as the gesture caused pain shot through his shoulder. "Anyway, they got in trouble for it. The principle called all of their parents. I think he called the Sheriff also, so Kyle won't be bothering me again."

Isabel's eyes narrowed even more and she said, "I'll kill Tess. This is all her fault. Did she have to start that stupid rumor?"

Before Max had a chance to respond, Michael joined the other two, looking incredibly pleased with himself.

"What are you smiling about?" Isabel snapped at Michael.

Michael shrugged carelessly and replied, "Just a little payback is all."

"What did you do?" Max asked slowly, searching his best friend's face for signs of something. Michael looked way too pleased with himself. "Please tell me you didn't get into a fight with Kyle?"

"No. But let's just say Kyle is going to have some trouble opening his locker today," Michael answered cryptically. "Not to mention the grade on his history test wasn't so good. And his backpack broke in the hall…" He winked at Isabel and opened the car door.

Max and Isabel exchanged and glance, then Isabel grinned. She couldn't help it, she found the entire idea of Michael playing practical jokes on Kyle kind of funny.

* * *

"Come on, Maria, I thought you and Liz had made up," Alex said softly. He was sitting at the kitchen table in his house, watching as Maria paced the floor angrily. 

"We did. I'm just…she's still keeping something from me," Maria replied. She turned and looked at Alex. "And you are too."

"What?" Alex asked, startled. "No, I'm not," he assured her, trying not to look too guilty. Maria glared at him, and Alex decided to switch topics. "Come on, Maria. So she didn't tell you about her and Max. You haven't told her about us."

Maria hissed a short angry breath from between her teeth and replied, "That is different."

"You keep saying that, Maria, but I don't see how it is," Alex replied quietly. "You are keeping secrets from her."

"_We_ are keeping secrets from her. We didn't want Liz to feel like a third wheel when she was with us. I still don't want her to feel that way," Maria replied heatedly.

"Why would I feel like a third wheel?" Liz asked, appearing in the doorway in time to hear Maria's last comment. She glanced back and forth between her two best friends, then the truth dawned on her, and she gasped in surprise and hurt. "You two are dating?"

"Liz…" Alex said, getting up quickly and walking over to her. "Lizzie, wait…"

"You didn't tell me?" Liz asked Maria. "All this time you were going on about me keeping secrets and you didn't tell me?" She spun on Alex and continued, "And you! I confided everything in you and you neglected to mention you were dating Maria?"

"What do you mean you confided in him?" Maria demanded, glaring at Liz. "What did you tell him that you couldn't tell me?"

"Nothing important," Liz snapped back.

"What are you doing here anyway, Liz?" Alex asked, trying not to sound unkind.

"Max got beat up by Kyle's friends because he was dating me and I got upset about it. I wanted to tell you two, but…" She frowned at the two of them and shrugged, "Obviously we don't confide in each other anymore."

"You're the one that started it," Maria growled. "And don't give me the whole, nothing happened at the shooting deal, Lizzie. I _know_ when you are lying."

Liz met Maria's eyes, but refused to answer the accusation. Maria turned to Alex, and he looked away, unable to meet her piercing stare.

"Fine," Maria snarled. She turned and stormed out of the kitchen, upset, angry, and hurt.

* * *

"And then, I tried to open my locker, and the inside of it was sealed shut. I had to get the janitor to pry the metal door off," Kyle said. He waved his hands around him in exasperation as he told the story to his father. Tess was listening from the sofa, a concerned look in her eyes. 

"Your locker was sealed shut?" Valenti asked, surprised. "It's pure metal. Is that even possible?"

"Well, it must be possible because it happened," Kyle replied. "And then the strap on my new backpack broke in the hall and all of my books fell everywhere. And we got a test back in History today, and all my answers were wrong. Well, not all of them, but a lot of them. And they were answers that I swear I didn't put down! The entire day was just so…" he let the sentence drift off, to frustrated to think of something else to say.

Tess opened her mouth to say something commiserating, but she stopped when she saw the look in Valenti's eyes. It was the same look she had seen when Kyle first told him about seeing Liz climb out of Max's window. It was a look that meant that he was making a deicsion about something, and it was a look that did not bode well for the four aliens.

The next words out of Valenti's mouth confirmed her suspicions and sent her heart plummeting somewhere into the vicinity of her stomach.

"And this all happened after your friends beat of Max Evans?" Valenti was not pleased about the fact that Kyle's friends had beaten up a schoolmate, but Kyle had assured him that he was not party to any of it. And he trusted Kyle on that.

Still, it had all happened after they had beaten up Max Evans.

Max Evans who had run towards Liz when she got shot…or didn't get shot depending on whose story he believed. Max Evans who had been having secret meeting with Liz Parker. Max Evans who had not told his mother about being present at the shooting. Max Evans who was friends with Michael Guerin, and Michael had clearly been lying to him earlier…

Did he believe in aliens?

Valenti turned and glanced over at Tess. She was staring at him, slightly concerned. He remembered briefly what Kyle had said to him earlier about Tess being worried that he was going to end up like his father…crazy and discredited. And then the conversation he had had with the girl herself, in which she had expressed her concern…or at least as close to expressing concern as she would ever get.

But what if his father was not crazy? What if there was something about Max, Isabel, and Michael?

Maybe it was time that he talked to Max.

Tess watched Valenti, knowing instinctively what he was thinking. She knew he had been close to dropping the case. She knew he had been close to letting the entire thing go.

But now…

"I'm going out," she said abruptly, standing up and placing the magazine she was reading on the sofa.

"Where?" Valenti asked, surprised.

"Just out," Tess replied, shrugging coolly. "I'm going to look for something to do in this dull town." She turned and walked towards the door, trying to keep her anger under control. She was going to kill the other three. How could they possibly be _that _stupid?

Valenti watched her go, feeling slightly guilty, but knowing he had to check out Max Evans. He had to know for certain that there was nothing to his suspicions before he dropped this case. He just _had_ to know.

* * *

Max looked up from his homework at the sound of a fingernails tapping lightly on glass. He walked over to the window and through the curtains back, raising an eyebrow in surprise at the person standing there. He pulled the window open and said, "Not the person I was expecting." 

Tess pulled herself through the window and said coolly, "Well, gee, I'm sorry to disappoint you. Was it Liz you were hoping for?" She glanced past Max and noted that Isabel and Michael were there as well. So much the better, she wouldn't have to go and hunt them down to yell at the separately.

Max closed the window with a snap and rubbed a hand over one of the bruises on his arm. Tess eyed him warily, then said quietly, "How are you?" Although she would never admit it, she knew that part of what happened to Max was her fault, and she felt guilty. She hadn't really thought about the repercussions her rumor would have for Max.

"Getting a conscious, now?" Isabel sneered. "He's fine, no thanks to you."

Tess swallowed the angry retort on her lips and said instead, "I'll talk to Kyle. Or I'll get Trudy to talk to Kyle. Either way, it won't happen again." It was as close to an apology as she could force herself to come, and she saw by the look in Max's eyes that he understood that.

"Don't do us any favors, Tess," Isabel spat. "We all know you don't actually care."

Tess lifted her chin slightly and surveyed Isabel with unreadable eyes. The other blonde alien was much taller than her, so she had to lean back to stare up at Isabel. The height difference didn't make her any less scary, however, and when Isabel saw the fire and fury leap into Tess' eyes, she knew Tess was about to lose her temper at them.

"If I didn't care, do you really think I would be going to all this trouble to keep the three of you safe from Jim?" Tess asked softly, her voice venomous. Without waiting for a response, she turned her attention to Michael and demanded,"Do you have any idea what you did? How could you possibly be stupid enough to use your powers against Kyle? What the hell is wrong with you?" Her voice rose with each sentence until she was shouting at him.

"What's the big deal?" Michael asked, bored.

"Big deal?" Tess hissed. She looked at him, then at Isabel, then at Max. She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, then said in the patient tone of someone trying to explain the obvious, "Because Kyle told Jim. And now Jim suspects Max."

"He already suspected me," Max pointed out, but his eyes betrayed his apprehension.

Tess shook her head. "I almost had him, Max. He was going to close the case." She rubbed her eyes, suddenly feeling disheartened and worn out. "But then Kyle told him what happened and…" She let the sentence drift off. "You are all so stupid!"

"How did you convince him to drop the case?" Isabel asked quietly, choosing to ignore Tess' last comment.

"I managed to convince Jim that I was worried that he would follow in his father's footsteps. I knew Kyle was worried about it as well, so when Jim found out that we were both concerned…well, he didn't want to ruin our family the way his father had ruined theirs."

"And he believed you when you told him you were worried? He didn't think you were just trying to get him to stop the investigation?" Michael demanded.

"Well, I didn't actually _tell_ him," Tess replied, rolling her eyes. "I implied it without actually admitting to caring." She shrugged and continued quietly, "And he believed me. Until you went and ruined it all." Her pointed glare and icy tone left little doubt that she was blaming the three of them for everything that had gone wrong.

Isabel swallowed, feeling guilty despite her attempts to ignore the emotion. "Why didn't you tell us what you were doing?"

Tess looked at her, incredulous. "The night after Max healed Liz he came to me and told me that I needed to get Jim off the case. I told him I would do it. Wasn't it obvious that that would be my ultimate goal?"

"You should have told us explicitly, Tess," Michael replied, narrowing her eyes at the smaller alien. "None of _us _have the ability to read minds." He crossed his arms over his chest and continued harshly, "We are in a crisis here, and we all need to be on the same page."

"I'm not the only one who isn't comminicating," Tess shot back, although her face was now tinged pink with guilt. Michael was, as usual, quite right. She hadn't told them explicitly what she was going to do, and it was unfair of her to assume that they would know...

Isabel saw the guilt in Tess' eyes and decided to press the issue, glad that she was, for once, not the one who felt at fault. "And, call me crazy, but I was a little distracted by the rumors you started. You know, ruining Max's reputation and getting him beat up," Isabel replied angrily. "Or were those all part of a greater plan as well?"

"Jim knew that Liz had gone to see Max. He also knew that Liz had claimed not to know Max at all. He was suspicious, and I was trying to convince him that whatever Liz and Max had been secretly meeting about, it wasn't related to the shooting," Tess explained hesitantly. "I figured that if the entire school thought that Max and Liz were seeing each other, Jim would be less suspicious." She glanced over at Max and said softly, "I _will_ talk to Kyle about it. The jocks won't bother you again."

There was a silence, then Max said stiffly, "Thank you." He watched Tess quietly. He was somewhat relieved that she had gained a little more control of her temper. After she had yelled at Michael... Well, he had expeted her to have tried to kill them all by now.

Finally, Tess broke the silence. "I should have told you...I just..." she glanced over at Michael. "I didn't think you would be stupid enough to pull a stunt like that."

"You know me," Michael deadpanned. "Stupid and reckless, all the way through."

Tess, Max, and Isabel smiled, remembering.

_" You what?" eleven-year old Tess cried, her eyes wide with surprise. She placed her hands on her hips in a remarkable immitation of a mother, and said, "Michael Guerin, I am vry disapointed in you." Isabel stood next to her, nodding seriously, her nose scrunched as she glared at the two boys in front of her.  
_

_Max snickered, but Isabel rounded on him and snapped, "And you! You shouldn't have let him do that. What were you thinking?"_

_"No fair, the girls are ganging up on us," Max whined to Michael. _

_"So we gang up on them!" Michael replied, grinning. He grabbed a pillow and threw it at Tess, who ducked and cried out in surprise._

_"Michael! " the curly-haired blonde girl snapped. "I'm seirous. You used your powers in school today."_

_"I think we should call them gifts," Isabel spoke up. "So we remember not to abuse them." She walked over to Max and sat down next to him, pouting. "'Cause Tessie's right , you know. Even if Danny was making fun of you, you shouldn't have done that. Punching him was not nice, and it got you into trouble with the principal and your Daddy."_

_"Hank's not gonna care," Michael replied bitterly, his twelve-year-old eyes momentarily clouding over. "Besides, it's not like anyone knows I used them. I just put a little power in my punch, nothing big."_

_"You almost broke his nose!" Tess replied, grabbing a pillow and throwing it at Michael. "Are you an idiot? You could have 'xposed us!"  
_

_He caught the pillow and shrugged. "Guess I'm just stupid and reckless, all the way through."  
_

"What do we do about Valenti?" Michael asked, bringing Tess out of her reverie.

Tess narrowed her eyes, her bad temper back, and answered, "_We_ don't do anything. I'll take care of it. Just don't use your powers and don't do anything stupid. And when Valenti talks to you, Max, do _try _not to reveal our secret." Her tone was slightly mocking.

"How are you going to take care of it?" Michael asked Tess suspiciously.

Tess turned and met his gaze. "You know that I've never used my powers…" she shot a look at Isabel and said, "…sorry, _gifts_, on Kyle of Jim?" She let out an angry breath and said, "I guess there is always time for a first."

"You didn't have a problem doing it to Alex," Max accused.

Tess turned to him and replied coldly, "I didn't have a choice with Alex. I had to do it, or he would have told Jim everything. Besides, things were easier with him because he didn't have proof."

"What do you mean?" Max asked, confused.

"Jim has records. He has an open case. Even if I mind-warp him, I still have to worry about what the deputies will think. Not to mention the fact that Jim could break out of my mind-warp if he sees something that makes him suspicious again." She leaned back against the wall and stared at the three other aliens. "Mind-warps are difficult to sustain, especially over long periods of time. Anything could trigger a…relapse I guess is the best word. Anything could make Jim remember how he really feels, what he really thinks. It was just easier and safer when I thought I could get him to drop the case on his own." She hesitated, then continued, "Jim is split on it, though. He really doesn't want to do anything to break up the family. That will work in my favor."

"Anything we can do to help?" Isabel said, now feeling incredibly guilty. Talks with Tess always turned out that way. No matter how angry she was at Tess when she started the conversation, no matter how wrong she thought the other girl was, she always walked away feeling guilty. Even when she was convinced it wasn't her fault. God, she hated the petite blonde.

Tess turned sapphire eyes to her, then said, "Dream-walk for me tonight. Make sure that Liz and Alex aren't a threat." She paused, then added a begrudging, "Please."

Isabel nodded, surprised at the request. And more surprised at the fact that Tess said please. "Okay."

Tess walked back over to the window and opened it. She climbed out and dropped to the ground below. Max leaned out the window and called to her softly, "Tess?" He waited until she had turned to look at him, then said, "I really am sorry about all this."

Tess shrugged and replied, "Whatever. Next time, just think before you bring some back from the dead."

* * *

"Maria?" 

Maria looked up and saw Alex and Liz standing hesitantly in the door to her bedroom. "What do you want?" she asked tiredly.

Liz stepped into the room and said, "Your mother let us in. She said you were in your room."

"What do you want?" Maria repeated.

Alex and Liz exchanged a look, then Liz said, "I'm sorry. About before. I shouldn't have… Maria, I want to share my secrets with you, I just…"

"Just what, Lizzie?" Maria asked. "What is it that is keeping you from telling me?"

Liz stared at Maria and pictured Max's soulful brown eyes staring at her. She remembered the way Michael had looked at her with fear right after Max had healed her. She saw Isabel glaring at her from across the room the day in biology that she had tricked Max into letting her look at his cells. She though of Tess' icy blue eyes regarding her haughtily. And she thought again of Max, and the way he had looked at her with so much trust when he confided in her.

_I won't tell anyone, Max. I give you my word. You can trust me._

Liz swallowed and looked at Maria. She remembered her promise to Max, but she remembered that this was Maria. Her best friend. The person she talked to about everything. The person she confided all of her secrets to. And she knew she could trust Maria to keep this secret.

"Nothing."

"What?" Maria asked, confused.

"Nothing in keeping me from telling you," Liz replied.

"Liz…" Alex warned, but Liz shot him a look and he lapsed into silence.

"You have a right to know what really happened that day at the Crashdown. What really happened at the shooting."

Maria sat up and gave Liz her full attention. "Well?" she prompted.

Liz took a deep breath and said, "You were right all along. I did get shot. And then Max came up to me…"

* * *

Next Chapter: Fall Out 

Due: 12/5


	9. Fall Out

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Thank you to all who answered my questions. Now that I think about it, I feel kind of stupid for not figuring out the whole M/M equals M&M equals candy thing. Also, I am going to reiterate that I really believe in the idea that relationships do not just suddenly appear, that they have to build, that the healthiest relationships are based in friendship, and that there are always obstacles in the way. Especially for teenagers. So expect things to take a while, and expect hearts to get broken.

Re; Mony19: I kind of figured you wouldn't like Liz even more after the last chapter. I also kind of figured that there was nothing that would actually make you like Liz... :) Kyle and Tess defintely are not going to end up together (the whole being brother and sister thing...). I always wondered why they were considered CC, because if you think about it, they weren't actually together on the show. They went to Prom and Kyle said Tess felt like his sister. Did they ever go on a real date where she wasn't using him to get to Max, and he was actually interested in her? Tess and Kyle may or may not end up in a serious relationship. I haven't really started thinking about Tess' love life yet, and I still don't know exactly what I am going to do with Trudy. We'll see what happens...

Re: Red-rumm: Thanks for the review. I am also a big candy fan, so once we get to the CC part, there will be lots of candy moments. It is also good to know that there are other candy and CC fans reading this story. Originally most of the reviews were by UC shippers, so I wasn't sure if CC shippers liked it.

Re: Grace52373: Thanks for the explanation, it clears things up for me. I always assumed that rebel just meant they would be rebelling against all the dreamers, but I don't know. There won't be many cliffhanger moments (although I'll have a lot of M/I brother-sister moments) because they grew up thinking they were siblings, so I just don't think that they would date. Most cliffhanger moments will be like the teasing between Micahel and Isabel in the chapter 'The Rules of the Game." I hope that is okay.

Re: Trude: Thanks for the review. Oh, Maria will definitely run away screaming. You're lucky, Trudy is going to be one of Tess' friends who is actually nice (as opposed to Sara, Jessica, Cliff, and anyone else I decide to introduce later). :)

Re: Ellethiel: Thanks for the review, I'm glad you like my portrayal of Tess. I am trying to have her walking the fine line between good and evil in her attempts to keep herself and the people she cares about safe. I will warn you now, I am going to have some 'not-so-nice Tess' moments in later chapters. As for the rumor-all rumors have their repercussions, this one a bit more than others.

Re: Magali: Thanks for the review. You don't have to worry about Michael/Liz. That is actually the one ship I don't particularly like, so I wasn't going to include any of that. I will have a Mi/L friendship, but no relationship. Mostly because I am a big candy fan. Once Michael and Isabel find out about their past, they will definitely talk about it, but that is still a ways down the road.

Re: Duccia : I'm glad you like Tess's character. I am trying really hard to have her be strong and independent, but also not incredibly nice. It is a fine line between good and evil, and she teeters on it as she tries to keep everyone safe. Also, her ability to control minds is problematic, because she could be corrupted by that absolute power over someone. But her intentions are good, and I _am _a Tess fan, so she _won_'t be villainized.

* * *

Chapter Eight: Fall Out

Liz paced the floor of her bedroom restlessly, unable to sleep. She rubbed her eyes and thought back to the discussion she had had earlier in the evening. She had hoped that telling Maria the truth would solve the problems she was having with her best friend. But it hadn't.

If anything, it had made everything worse.

"_You're kidding. Please tell me you are kidding. This is all a joke, right?" Maria asked, frantically searching Liz and Alex's eyes for some hint that this was all just a practical joke._

"_Maria…" Alex said, leaning forward and placing a hand on Maria's arm. She shrugged him off and jumped up from the table, moving away from the other two._

"_It isn't a joke, Maria," Liz said quietly. "Everything I told you is true."_

_Maria's eyes widened and she nodded, trying to understand what she had heard. "Max is an alien? Michael, Isabel, Tess…? They are…Aliens exist?" she whispered._

"_Yes," Liz replied simply._

_Maria shook her head in denial. "No! You're lying." She grabbed a chair and pulled it towards her, sinking into the seat. "You're wrong."_

"_I got shot and Max healed me," Liz said. "It isn't a lie. That's what happened, Maria."_

_Maria nodded slowly and said, "And Isabel can enter people's dreams? Michael can make things explode? Tess can control minds?" It seemed almost too far fetched to believe._

_Almost._

"_Yes," Alex and Liz said in unison._

"_Why haven't you told Sheriff Valenti?" Maria demanded. "How do we know these… freaks…aren't a threat to us?"_

"_They aren't freaks," Liz replied evenly. "And we can't tell anyone!"_

"_You've got to be kidding me. You want me to keep this a secret?" Maria asked, her voice becoming shrill with disbelief. "Are you out of your mind?"_

"_Maria, Max saved Liz. She would have died otherwise," Alex said, trying to get Maria to see their point of view. "They aren't evil or anything."_

_Maria turned and looked at him, then her eyes narrowed in anger. "You knew."_

"_What?" Alex asked, confused at the seemingly non-sequitur comment._

"_All this time, you knew what had happened to Liz. All this time I kept telling you I was worried that she was lying to me, and you kept telling me that everything was fine…you _knew_!"_

_Alex nodded hesitantly. "Maria…"_

"_Save it," Maria snapped. She jumped to her feet and pushed the chair away. "I can't believe you would lie to me like this," she snarled. "I can't believe you wouldn't tell me…" She turned to Liz and practically screeched, "My God, Liz, you are dating an alien and you couldn't tell me? I'm supposed to be your best friend!"_

_She turned and stormed out of the room, leaving Liz and Alex alone to exchange guilty looks and contemplate the difficulties of their friendship._

That had been several hours ago. It was now late at night, and Liz couldn't sleep. Alex had called her a few hours ago to tell her that Maria had, quite empathically, ended their relationship, saying that she couldn't date a guy who would lie to her like that.

Liz sighed and climbed into bed, pulling the covers up over her body. She closed her eyes and tried to drift to sleep, but all she could think about was Maria. She was plagued with worry, guilt and doubt.

Was telling Maria the right thing to do after all? What if Maria never forgave her? What if Maria freaked out and told someone about the aliens?

She finally drifted to sleep, only to dream about the argument, and about the possible end of her friendship.

* * *

In the Evans house, Isabel pulled out of Liz's dreams and sat up with a start. She glanced down at the yearbook, open to Liz's picture. Slamming it shut in frustration, she stood up, stormed out of her room, and walked down the hall towards her brother's door. She knocked twice, then shoved the door open, waking Max with a start. 

"Izzy?" Max asked sleepily, blinking as the light from the hallway flooded his room. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" Isabel hissed. "Your girlfriend is an idiot, that's what is wrong."

"My girlfriend?" Max asked. He sat up in bed and frowned, trying to understand what Isabel was saying. "Liz and I aren't dating."

"You know what I mean," Isabel snorted.

Max nodded and then suddenly realized that it was the middle of the night. "How did you talk to Liz…" Realization dawned. "You dream-walked her?" he asked.

"Yes, Tess asked me to. Remember?" Isabel replied. "And guess what Liz decided to do yesterday?" She walked over to the bed, grabbed a pillow and flung it at Max. "She told Maria!"

And suddenly Max was wide awake.

* * *

Valenti grabbed a cup of coffee and walked back to his desk. Morning had dawned, bright as usual, and it had found him at work, reading over the files again. He rubbed his bleary eyes and took a sip of the bitter drink, scanning the article for anything that would help him break the case. 

There was a knock in the door, then a head poked around it and said, "Sir?"

"Yes?" Valenti asked, looking up from desk. "What is it, Deputy?"

Deputy Hannigan stepped into the room. He was a tall and sturdy man, built like a boulder. He had been a deputy for several years, and was known for patrolling the streets even when he was off duty, making sure that no one was drinking, vandalizing, or joy-riding. He was often called the Patroller by the Roswell teens because of this.

"Sir, you said you wanted to make arrangements to interview some people this today? This afternoon?" He looked down at the notepad in his hand and said, "Maria DeLuca and Max Evans?"

"Yes," Valenti said, "that's right."

"Evans?" the deputy asked, frowning. "Isn't he the guy who is dating your son's ex?"

Valenti looked up, startled. "Does everyone know about that?" he asked, somewhat disapproving.

Deputy Hannigan shrugged and answered, "Yes, sir. Pretty much everyone knows." He shrugged again, almost apologetically, and said by way of an explanation, "It's a small town."

Valenti shook his head, incredulous. "I guess it is," he admitted.

"I'll arrange these interviews for you, sir," the deputy said, gesturing to his note pad. He turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.

* * *

Liz walked quickly towards her locker, hesitating slightly when she saw Max standing there. He had his back to her, but she could tell by the way in which he stood, straight and unbending, that something had happened. 

"Max?" she called tentatively.

He turned to face her, and she took a step back, startled and scared by the look in his eyes. He was absolutely furious. He was also sporting a few bruises and a black eye.

"What's wrong?" Liz asked quickly. "What happened to you?"

Max grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her over to her locker. "Do you remember standing in the band room and telling me that I could trust you?" he demanded harshly. "Do you remember _promising_ me that you wouldn't tell anyone?"

Liz pulled her arm out of his grasp and stared up at him, her eyes wide. "What is this all about?" she asked, fearing that she already knew the answer. But how could he know about Maria? Unless…Maria hadn't told anyone, had she?

"Maria," Max replied coldly. "How could you tell her?"

Liz swallowed and looked away. "How do you know?" she asked quietly.

Max looked around the hallway, making sure that they weren't being overheard. Fortunately, the hall was packed with students, but none of them were paying attention to Max and Liz. "Isabel dream-walked you," Max explained quietly.

"What?" Liz demanded. Now it was her turn to be angry. "She entered my dream? How could she do that? How could you let her do that?"

Max sighed and replied somewhat guiltily, "It wasn't my idea. Tess wanted to make sure that you and Alex wouldn't me a threat. Things have gotten worse since Michael used his gifts on Kyle and we've had to…"

"Wait," Liz interrupted, confused. "What do you mean, Michael used his gifts on Kyle? And, seriously, what happened to your face?"

"He was born with it," a cool voice said. Max and Liz turned to see Isabel standing behind him. She was glaring openly at Liz, her cold eyes accusing the other girl of betraying them.

"Oh, very funny," Max replied sarcastically. He turned to Liz and said, "If you must know, Kyle's friends didn't like the idea of me dating 'Valenti's girl,' and decided to warn me of the consequences." Max touched his face gingerly and sighed.

"Oh, God, Max, I'm sorry," Liz said, feeling guilty that Max was getting beaten up because of her. "I'll talk to Kyle, make him…"

"Make him what?" Isabel said derisively. "You aren't his girlfriend anymore. Trudy McIntire is, and I don't believe Kyle really cares what you think anymore." She folded her arms over her chest and leaned back against the lockers.

"Don't worry about me," Max said coldly. "Tess is going to take care of it. They won't come after me anymore."

"How is Tess going to take care of it?" Liz asked skeptically.

Max snorted. "This is Tess Harding we are talking about," he replied. "The jocks worship the ground she walks on. _Everybody_ in this school worships the ground she walks on. She'll figure something out." He narrowed his eyes at Liz again and switched back to the previous topic. "Why did you tell Maria?"

"I had to," Liz defended herself. "She was getting suspicious, and I couldn't keep lying to her indefinitely. She would have figured it out." She glanced between Isabel and Max, then said defiantly, "Besides, I didn't want to lose her friendship over this. Maria and I…we have sixteen years of friendship, okay? That is sixteen years of secrets and gossip, of birthday parties, of school projects, of joint complaining about our parents…I didn't want to risk losing that." She narrowed her eyes at Max. "And I thought _you_ would at least be a little understanding of my feelings."

"Great," Isabel muttered sarcastically, rolling her eyes. "So now because of your insecurities, we have to worry about Valenti_ and_ Maria. Things just keep getting better and better."

"I thought Tess was taking care of Valenti," Liz asked, curious.

Max and Isabel exchanged a dark look, and Max said, "There was a…set back. But she is getting everything under control…I hope." His tone left little doubt that he was worried about the Tess' success.

Liz looked between the two, but decided not to inquire further. "Look, Maria won't tell anyone. I promise she won't."

"You were panicking last night," Isabel said. "Your dreams…she told the either the Sheriff, the FBI, or reporters in every single dream you had."

Liz bristled and said, "Stay out of my dreams, Isabel."

"Don't go spilling our secret to your friends," Isabel shot back. She turned on her heel and stalked away.

Liz turned to Max, and said sincerely, "Max, I really am sorry. I didn't want this to happen."

At that moment, Alex came running up to them, his eyes wide with fear. "Liz," he whispered to his best friend, nodding a quick greeting to Max in passing. "Liz, I just spoke to Maria. She said that Valenti wants to talk to her this afternoon…"

Max and Liz looked at each other in panic and worry.

* * *

Michael slammed his locker shut and turned to watch as Tess, Trudy, Cliff, and Kyle walked down the hallway. People scattered in front of the four of them, as though afraid of getting in their way. It was so completely like a typical teen movie, it almost made Michael laugh. 

Almost.

But he was standing here, staring at Tess, for a reason. He needed to talk to her, to tell her what he had found out. What Max had told him. Liz had told Maria the truth, and somehow Michael was the one who ended up having to tell Tess. He did not relish the task.

The four paused for a moment, and Trudy detached herself from the group. She walked quickly towards her locker, and after a moment of hesitation and a very blatant prodding look from Tess, Kyle hurried after his new girlfriend.

Cliff said something to Tess, who laughed at the comment and rolled her eyes. Then Cliff too disappeared, off to his own locker. Tess was left standing in the middle of the hallway.

The hallway began to empty as the students hurried off to their classes. Tess walked slowly over to the Michael and leaned against the wall, her eyes narrowed slightly in suspicion. "What stupid thing did Max do that he was too scared to tell me about so he sent you instead?"

Michael grimaced at her already icy tone and knew his next words would make it positively glacial. "Liz told Maria. Maria freaked. Valenti has a meeting with her this afternoon, and Alex and Liz think that Maria is going to spill." He rushed the words, hoping that if he said them quickly, Tess would somehow be less angry.

The idea didn't actually make any sense.

It didn't work either.

"What?" she hissed, her eyes narrowing dangerously.

Michael was suddenly immensely grateful that he had chosen to have this conversation in a public place where Tess wouldn't be able to use her gifts to kill him. He swallowed nervously, licked his lips, and repeated, "Liz told Maria. She might spill."

Tess said nothing. Her entire body went still, her eyes widened slightly in shock. She searched his face, hoping that this was some kind of really bad joke.

It wasn't.

"Can't Liz talk to her?" Tess asked quietly, her mind working frantically to think up a solution to their newest problem. "Can't she convince Maria not to tell Jim? Max saved Liz's life, surely that will mean something to Maria."

Michael rubbed his tired eyes and shook his head. "No, I don't think she can. _Max_ said that she already tried, and said it didn't go so well." He lapsed into silence for a moment, and some of the fear showed on his face. He knew that Maria posed a serious threat to them, and he knew they were running out of time.

Tess, meanwhile, noted the bitterness in Michael's voice as he mentioned Max's name, and lifted one eyebrow questioningly. She didn't ask about it, however, because she knew perfectly well why Michael was upset with Max. If he hadn't healed Liz…

"What do you want me to do?" Tess asked quietly, already knowing the answer.

"Mind warp her," Michael said bluntly. "Like you did with Alex. Max and Isabel agreed to it, and we won't tell Liz or Alex what we are doing."

Tess sighed and shook. "It might not be that easy, Michael."

"Why not?" the alien boy replied.

"Because Alex really wanted to keep Maria and Liz safe. He _really_ wanted that, and he was willing to do whatever it took to ensure that they stayed out of danger. All I had to do was slightly increase the fear that was already there, and get him to think that going to Jim would only put his friends in more danger. With Maria, it could be a completely different story," Tess explained.

"You think she doesn't want to keep Liz and Alex safe?" Michael asked.

Tess shrugged and replied, "I don't know. I'll take a look into her mind today and find out how easy it is. If she is dead set on exposing us… My powers may be impressive on a small scale, but they are rather limited on a larger one. I don't know what I can do or how long I can sustain a mind-warp without losing control of it."

"What happens if you lose control of the mind-warp?" Michael asked quietly. He and Tess had never really talked about her gifts, only his. She had helped him to train, to gain some control over the bizarre things he could do with his mind. But she had always seemed to be able to train on her own, and she never went to them for help.

She wouldn't have been able to admit to needing help.

Tess gave Michael and unreadable stare, then said quietly, "Maria would die."

* * *

Trudy dropped her bag on the floor next to her desk and slipped into the seat. She was sitting next to Tess and behind Sara. Cliff, Kyle, and a couple other jocks sat behind her. She greeted all of them with a smile, blushing as she met Kyle's gaze. 

Max and Liz walked in to class.

Tess looked up at him and frowned, leaning across the aisle to ask Trudy, "Do you know what happened to Max's face?"

Trudy, Sara, and Kyle all looked over at Max. Trudy's eyebrows slanted together as she studied Max's face. She shook her head, Sara shrugged and replied that she didn't really care, and Kyle commented that it looked as though Max had been in a fight.

Cliff smirked and said, "We just taught him a little lesson."

Tess turned and glanced back at him, her eyebrows raised. "What was the lesson?"

"Don't go messing with Valenti's girl," Cliff answered promptly.

"Kyle has a new girl," Tess pointed out. "And I would much rather see him with Trudy then Liz Parker anyway." She shot a quick smile at Trudy then turned her eyes towards Max and Liz.

"I don't think you should start fights anyway," Trudy added quietly. "It isn't nice."

Cliff snorted in disbelief, but Kyle spoke up. "She's right. Anyway, who cares who Liz is dating? Like Tess said, I've got a new girl." He sent Trudy a warm smile, and she turned bright red.

"Glad we actually agree on that now," Tess commented dryly. "Took you long enough to realize dating Liz was a stupid idea, though."

Cliff punched Kyle on the arm and said, "Well, a guy is allowed one mistake, right?" He turned to Trudy and Tess and said, "If you want us to lay off Max, we will. Heaven forbid we go against what the ladies say."

Tess laughed and replied, "Well, I don't know what Trudy thinks, but I don't particularly care what you do. Just as long as Kyle doesn't end up going back to Liz." She turned to face Cliff fully and said, "He doesn't have much common sense, you know." She winked at Trudy and continued, "I mean, he was so nervous about asking Trudy out. He was worried that she would turn him down."

"Really?" Cliff asked, leaning forward. "The Great Valenti, nervous about asking a girl out on a date?"

Sara laughed and joined in the conversation, "I had no idea. He has insecurities just like the rest of us mere mortals."

Trudy, meanwhile, was blushing bright red. She slapped Tess on the arm and said, "Stop it! You are embarrassing Kyle."

"He's not the only one embarrassed," Tess replied, glancing at Trudy's flaming cheeks.

"I think we should change the topic," Trudy pressed. She shot a look at Cliff and said, "And I think you should leave Max Evans alone. And Kyle agrees with me." She turned to Kyle. "You do, right?"

"Of course he does," Tess cut in. She exchanged a glance with Sara and said, "My brother's never really known how to make his own decisions, so I am sure he will agree with everything Trudy says. Don't you think so, Sara?"

"Of course," Sara agreed, nodding seriously.

"You do realize that I am sitting right here, right?" Kyle intoned dryly. "I can hear every word you are saying." He folded his arms over his chest and glared at the others in mock anger.

"Yes, well, I don't just insult people behind their backs. I do it to their face, too," Tess replied, a slight smile playing at her lips. She turned and faced the front of the room as the teacher walked into class, confident that the jocks would leave Max alone.

* * *

"Maria, please," Liz begged, grabbing the other girl by the arm and pulling her away from the group of students standing next to them in the hall. She lowered her voice and glanced around worriedly. "Listen to me. Max is a good guy, okay? He saved me life." 

"He's an alien!" Maria hissed back, her eyes widening with disbelief at Liz' calm words.

"Actually, we use the code name Czechoslovakians," Liz replied before she could stop herself. She smiled slightly at Maria's incredulous look and explained, "So that no one knows what we are talking about…"

"Why are you so determined to protect them?" Maria snapped. "Do you have any idea what they are capable of?" She folded her arms over her chest and spat, "I mean, you know what powers they have, but do you know whether or not they use them? Liz! What if Tess has used her mind-power-thing on us?"

"Gifts, not powers" Liz corrected automatically, then realized what she had said. "Oh, God, I'm turning into Isabel," she murmured. She ran a hand through her hair and frowned, knowing that mentioning what Tess had done to Alex was not the best idea.

"Whatever," Maria snarled. "The point is, I have a meeting with Valenti this afternoon, and I am going to tell him the truth."

"Do you have any idea what will happen to them if you do that?" Liz asked frantically. "Maria, they'll…they'll dissect them. They'll run tests on them and take them apart. How can you condemn anyone to that? Even Tess?"

"They aren't human!" Maria replied, sounding like a broken record.

Liz frowned and bit her lip, then said, "If they were animals…cats or dogs…would you send them to be tortured?"

For the first time, Maria paused, looking down, indecision flickering through her eyes. But it was only momentary, and when she looked back up at Liz, her gaze was filled with determination. "They aren't animals. They aren't from this planet, and for all we know, they could be dangerous."

"Maria, trust me…"

"That's the problem, Liz," Maria said quietly, cutting the other girl off. "I don't trust you. I don't even know you anymore." And she turned and walked away, leaving her ex-best-friend standing alone in the hall.

For a moment, Liz stood there, unsure of what to do or say, then she too turned and disappeared down the hallway.

Once the two girls were gone, Tess stepped out from behind the corner where she had been silently listening to the conversation. She sighed and closed her eyes. Maria had made her mind up, and it would be too difficult to use her mind-warp to change it. Too difficult and too dangerous.

But Maria wanted to trust Liz. She wanted to be friends with her again, that much was clear to Tess from her short excursion into the other girl's mind. Which meant that, while Tess' gifts were useless right now, Liz's friendship was not.

There was still hope.

* * *

Tess pulled her books out of her locker and turned to Sara. "Go ahead to lunch without me, I'll catch up with you in a second." Sara nodded and walked away. Tess sighed and closed her eyes, leaning her head against the cold metal. She had been preoccupied the entire day, thinking about the best way to throw Jim off the trail. And now this problem with Maria… 

God, she hated Max.

And speak of the devil…

"Tess, We need to talk," Max said, pausing and leaning against her locker. His eyes quickly scanned up and down the hall, looking for anyone who could overhear their conversation. Once he had ascertained that they were truly alone, he turned back to Tess.

She had opened her eyes, and was looking up at him suspiciously. "What?" she asked tiredly.

"Liz talked to Maria, but Maria won't give on this," Max said bluntly, cutting directly to the chase. Michael said you were going to figure out whether or not you could mind-warp Maria. Have you done it yet?"

"Yes," Tess replied evenly. She paused and looked up at Max, then sighed and shook her head. "I can't. Her mind is too strongly made up on this issue."

"So that's it?" Max asked incredulously. "You're just going to give up?"

Tess raised an eyebrow at him and replied coldly, "Of course not, Max. I said _I_ couldn't change her mind. I didn't say it could be done."

"But…"

"It will just have to be done the old-fashioned way."

"And what way is that?" Max asked, confused.

"Liz is still the key," Tess explained. "Maria values her friendship enough that she will listen to her. Liz can convince her to trust us, and not to talk to Jim."

"But I told you that Liz already tried and it didn't work," Max protested,

"So that's it?" Tess mocked, throwing his previous words back at him. "You are just going to give up?" She crossed her arms and continued, "Tell Liz to try again. And get Alex to help her this time. Maria will listen to them if she's given a good enough incentive."

Max nodded slowly. "Okay," he said. "I'll talk to Liz and Alex."

Tess nodded wearily and turned away, looking through the empty hallway. "I'll take care of Jim tonight," she said in a low voice, her words oddly devoid of emotion.

Max nodded slowly, praying silently that everything worked out. If Liz could convince Maria to hold her tongue, and if Tess could mind-warp Valenti into dropping the investigation, then maybe, just maybe, things would work out okay for them.

But it was a pretty big if...

Tess turned and walked away, leaving Max standing there staring after her, his mind on far away thoughts.

Max stared after her for a moment, then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Behind him, he could hear the sound of footsteps and knew instinctively that Isabel and Michael were approaching him. He waited until he could sense their presence directly behind him, then said in a soft voice, "Her gifts won't work on Maria. We have to find alternate means."

Michael nodded moodily and glared at Max in open hostility. Isabel pursued her lips and asked icily, "And what will those methods be?"

"I'll get Liz and Alex to talk to Maria again. Tess thinks they can convince her to stay quiet," Max replied, turning to face the other two. He took in their angry faces and sighed, knowing they were furious at him. And in all honesty, they had a reason to be. And yet…

Every time he was with Liz, he felt that connection. Something he had never felt before, something he instinctively knew to hold on to. And he couldn't honestly say that he regretted telling her the truth.

Because every time he looked into her eyes, he felt sudden peace.

Isabel narrowed her eyes shrewdly at him, and, as though reading his mind, said, "I hope you still think being with her is worth it when we all end up as lab experiments."

"Nothing is going to happen to us," Max replied quietly, his eyes filling with exhaustion. "I won't let it, Tess won't let, Liz and Alex won't let it. We will get Maria on our side, and things will work out. I know they will."

Michael opened his mouth to say something, but the click of heels on the floor stopped him, and the three aliens turned to see Liz hurrying towards them, her expression worried. "I just ran into Tess," she breathed as she neared them. "She said I needed to talk to you." She looked at the others in fear, knowing that for Tess to actively seek her out, something important must have happened.

Max tore his gaze away from Michael's angry face and turned to Liz. "Tess thinks that if you and Alex double team Maria, you can get her to stop."

"I've tried," Liz replied despondently. "I've tried everything, and it hasn't worked."

"Well, you are going to have to try again," Michael snapped. He rubbed his eyes and said, "Look, Tess said Maria could be convinced. So whatever it was she saw in Maria's head, she…"

"She looked in Maria's mind?" Liz demanded, glaring at the others. "You let her do that? Why?" She was almost seething with fury.

"Because I am trying to keep us from getting killed," Max replied heatedly.

"Well, in that case, why don't you just have Tess erase Maria's memory?" Liz spat. "That would solve the problem, wouldn't it?" Max looked away, and Michael and Isabel both looked at the floor. Liz's eyes widened in horror and she demanded, "Tess did it, didn't she? She did something to Maria?"

"No," Max replied softly. "She was going to but…" He reached over to Liz and placed both his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. "Liz, Maria is so determined to out us that Tess' gifts wouldn't have worked. _That_ is how much danger we are in right now."

Liz swallowed and nodded, looking away. "What am I supposed to do?" she asked. "How am I supposed to convince her to do this?"

"You can do it," Max replied forcefully. "I know you can." He smiled warmly at her, and she felt the heat rise into her face.

She looked at Isabel and Michael, both of whom were regarding her in silence. Even without extraterrestrial gifts, she could sense the tension between the three, and in a sudden wave of guilt, she realized she was the cause of the tension. None of this would have happened if Max hadn't healed her, or, as Tess put it, if she could have just sidestepped the bullet.

Michael took pity on the girl, seeing the guilt in her eyes. He wanted to like her, although he would never admit it to anyone. There was something about her, a sense of vulnerability, that made her endearing. The only girls he really knew, Isabel and Tess, were anything but vulnerable, and Liz's shyness and awkwardness were a refreshing change.

"Look," he said gruffly, trying to keep his voice soft, "I don't know about Isabel or Max, but I trust Tess. And if she says you can do this, you can change Maria's mind, then I'll believe her. I'll believe _you_."

Liz nodded slowly and turned her gaze to Max. "Max?" she asked gently, hoping he would agree with Michael.

Max smiled reassuringly at her and said, "Even without Tess' reassurance, I know you can do this. You promised you would keep our secret safe, and I believed you. I still do."

"And I will," Liz said with determination. Her eyes flashed briefly with resolve and purpose, and she said in a stronger voice, "I'll stop Maria, Max. I won't let anything happen. I promise, your secret _is_ safe with me."

And quite suddenly Max knew that, no matter what happened to them, he would never regret bringing Liz into his life.

* * *

Next Chapter: Waiting to Breathe 

Due: Thurday 12/8


	10. Waiting to Breathe

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Please read the part of my response to Magali that deals specifically with Michael and his feelings towards Liz. It is something that I haven't made that clear, but I would like people to know because it helps explain some of Michael's character. Also, due to new rules, I am no longer allowed to post replies to the reviews on the chapter itself. If you want a reply, just make sure you are signed in when you review, or, if you are not a registered user of this website, add your e-mail address to the appropriate box when you review, and I'll try to answer them all in a somewhat prompt and timely fashion.

Re: Mony19: I know it doesn't appear that the other three aliens are doing much, but what can they do? They don't have Tess' powers. They will take a more active role in what is going to happen next in the story-and by next I mean what will happen about three chapters from now :) - and Tess is not going to be nice to them starting in a bit. My Tess in this story is different from my Tess in The Crucible because this Tess is going to be downright mean (in a somewhat uncalled for way). So just a warning, you might not like my portrayal of her in some of the later chapters. She won't ever be truly evil, but she'll take some things a little too far. But she won't be the ultimate villian like she was on the show, seeing as I still like her and all... :)

Re: Magali: Everyone is throwing accusations because everyone has done something that someone else is upset about. Maria lying to Liz about Alex, doesn't change the fact that Liz did lie to Maria as well. And Liz telling Maria doesn't change the fact that Isabel invaded her mind. And my experience has been that people are a lot more forgiving of flaws in themselves than they are of flaws in other people. As for Michael; you made a good point, he really wouldn't trust Liz this early. The thing is, he doesn't trust her. He _wants _to trust her. It is a phenomenum you see frequently with abused or neglected children, they actually do want to trust people, but because of their past experiences, they can't bring themeselves to do it. As for the refreshing comment, I was just trying to show that Tess and Isabel were both very independant and hid all of their true feelings behind a mask (it is going to be important in later chapters, especially with Alex/Isabel interactions, so I was trying to start foreshadowing a bit). I didn't even think about how it sounded in relation to Michael's feelings about Liz. Oh, and don't worry about Mi/L friendship, it won't be the confiding feelings and overprotectiveness type. Anyway, I know this is a really long response, but I _really _appreciated your review since you gave some constructive criticism, which was great. I obviously need to clear up my protrayal of Michael's feelings and try to get him closer to the show, so I'll try to make it better in later chapters.

Re: Katie 05: Thanks for the reivew, I'm glad you like the story. And thank you for answering the 'what do and don't you ship?' questions. I'll avoid a Mi/L pairing, but it will take a bit longer for the candy relationship to form. Both Maria and Michael have a few 'demons' to overcome before they can get together, and even once they start dating things are never going to be easy. That's just what happens when you date a alien hybrid. :) Besides, if everything was smooth sailing for them, I wouldn't have a story to write, would I?

Re: Duccia: Thanks for the reivew. As long as whoever you are writing to can understand your English, that's really all that matters, right? And the fact that you can speak English and Italian, that's just cool. I always like getting reviews that have suggestions and ideas on ways to enhance my story because that's half the fun of writing (how else am I suppose to improve?) . As for your comment about the other three aliens not taking initiative, you aren't the only one who has mentioned that. I didn't really realize until a couple of chapters ago how much of all this Tess was doing on her own. So I am trying to rectify that, and expect the others to be more active in later chapters. Part of the reason I made it so that Liz (and not Tess) has to deal with Maria was because I wanted to get the focus off of Tess somewhat. Also, Max and Tess' 'friendship' (if you can even call it that) is pretty strained right now, and once those two have a falling out, Max will have to do some leading on his own.

Re: Ellethiel: I'm glad you liked the ending, I was trying my best to show how much in love with Liz Max really is. It is definitely ignorant to be scared of aliens, but (if you remember) Maria freaked on the show as well and almost turned them in. She just needs some time to think and process what she knows. I'm going to have to create a new character for Tess to date since she obviously can't have Kyle. At the moment, I haven't given it much thought, but maybe later on in the story she'll find someone. I'm also glad you liked the Michael-Liz brief interaction. There will be a lot more Michael in later chapters, and a lot about his trust issues. Anyway, thanks for the review, keep reading.

* * *

Chapter Nine: Waiting to Breathe

Liz ran down the steps of the school, chasing Maria across the parking lot. Ignoring the strange looks the others were giving her, she pushed through the crowded lot, following Maria frantically. Alex trailed behind her, walking more slowly, apparently deciding he was to dignified to run. Maria walked on, ignoring those chasing her.

Liz finally managed to reach her best friend after the blonde had crossed the street. She stepped in front of Maria and grabbed her arm, forcing her to stop. "Maria, please," she begged. "Just stop and think about what you are doing."

"I have thought, Liz," Maria replied coolly, glaring at her best friend. "I thought about it all those times you lied to me."

"And you have every right to be mad at me, Maria," Liz replied honestly. Her voice was thick with guilt as she continued, "But don't take your anger out on Max and the others. Please. This isn't their fault."

"They're aliens!" Maria hissed.

Liz glanced around quickly, making sure that no one was close enough to hear. "Don't say that!" she warned, worried.

Alex had reached them by that point, and he added quickly, "We have to be careful in public."

"And you!" Maria snapped. "How could _you_ lie to me too?" She glared at him and continued, "You know what? I'm not talking to you anymore!"

"See?" Liz said quickly, snatching at an opportunity to prove her point. "You lied to me about you and Alex! I'm not the only one who is keeping secrets."

"Yeah," Maria replied waspishly, "but my secrets don't involve brining someone back from the dead." She tucked a short strand of blonde hair behind her ear and glanced from Liz to Alex. "You can't compare me dating Alex to Max healing you."

"No, you can't," Alex agreed slowly. He sighed and looked away from Maria for a moment, then continued in a softer voice, "But, as you said, Max _healed_ Liz. He saved her life. Is this how you are going to repay him?"

"How can you live knowing what he can do? How do you know he isn't evil?" Maria retorted. "I mean, for God's sake, Alex, he has all these powers that we know nothing about. What if we wake up one morning, and…and…and we're _dead_!"

"If Max wanted to hurt me, he could have just let me die," Liz pointed out.

Maria rolled her eyes at the comment and turned on her heel, marching away from her friends. Liz and Alex exchanged a worried glance, then hurried after their friend.

"Maria, turning Max over to the FBI isn't going to keep us safe," Alex panted, slightly out of breath as he struggled to keep us with Maria's long and forceful strides. He took a deep breath, thinking over what Tess had told him, and said, "Once they know that Max healed Liz, they'll come after her as well."

Maria stopped, worry flickering over her features. She turned slightly and looked over at Alex, her eyes wide. "What do you mean?" she asked quietly.

Alex swallowed and wished desperately that he would be able to pull this off as convincingly as Tess had. "They'll want to see if she is any different. They'll take her and dissect her…" He broke off, realizing that both Liz and Maria were staring at him open-mouthed.

Liz met Alex's eyes and looked away, fear in her eyes. So that was what Tess had told Alex to convince him to keep his mouth shut. She swallowed the lump in her throat and wondered briefly if Tess had made that up, or if it was actually true. Was she in danger now?

"They wouldn't do that," Maria said. She turned and kept walking defiantly, refusing to believe Alex's words. "She is _human_. They wouldn't hurt her, she isn't a threat."

"This isn't about who is a threat and who isn't," Liz said quickly, finding her voice.

"The hell it isn't," Maria hissed.

"They aren't a threat to us!" Liz argued back.

Maria shook her head pityingly. "Of course they are, Lizzie. You're blinded by your infatuation with Max. Too blinded to see what is right in front of you."

"And what is right in front of me?" Liz snapped, her patience wearing thin.

Maria paused long enough to round on her friend. "You don't know a thing about any of them, Liz!" She shook her head and resumed her long strides. "Can you honestly say that you trust them not to hurt you when you don't even know who they are, what they can do, or where they are from?"

Liz sighed and shook her head in frustration. But even as she struggled to push away Maria's words, a memory floated to mind. The flashes she had gotten when she kissed Max, they had ended with…

_Blood on the ground, a flash of light, dead eyes staring blankly ahead. Pain._

Maria, interpreting Liz's silence correctly, smiled in satisfaction and said, "See? You don't trust them. And neither do I."

Alex glanced back and forth between his two best friends, a slight frown appearing on his face. "Liz?" he asked. He wasn't sure what she was thinking, but whatever it was, it had made her pause in her tirade. It had made her doubt the aliens for a moment.

He rubbed his weary eyes and sighed. He knew why he wanted to keep their secret: he was afraid. Tess' words had struck home, and, even if she hadn't played around with his mind, he would still be afraid. So was the only reason he trusted them because of fear?

He knew very little about them. Max seemed nice enough. He had saved Liz's life. Michael was a little scary sometimes, but he seemed to really care about Max and Isabel. And Isabel…well, Isabel he had had a crush on since seventh grade. Not that he would ever tell her that. She was stunning, and nice, and while she could be a little cold sometimes, she could also be genuinely warm.

But Tess… Tess had invaded his mind, had played around with his emotions. He was scared of Tess. He was perfectly willing to admit it, he was terrified of someone who had that kind of power. And from the little he had heard from Liz, and what he had gathered from Max, Isabel, and Michael, everyone else was afraid of Tess as well.

Unless it was an act. Unless they were all as cold as Tess. Unless none of them had morals or regrets.

Was Maria right? Where they fools to trust Max, Isabel, Michael, and Tess?

"Penny for your thoughts?" Liz asked softly, watching the apprehension and confusion appear on Alex's face.

Alex bit his lip for a moment, then said, "Just thinking about…"

"About what?" Maria snapped. She paused at the corner of a busy street, looking both ways before she began to cross to the other side. Alex and Liz hurried behind her.

"Tess…" Alex admitted reluctantly. "About what she did to my mind…" He broke off at the angry look from Liz and frowned, raising an eyebrow. Liz nodded her head sharply to Maria, and Alex realized suddenly that Liz hadn't told Maria what Tess had done.

But it was too late to take it back now.

"What did she do?" Maria demanded.

"Tess sort of...she...the other day when Alex...when he was...was at the Sheriff's office..." Liz shot a desperate look at Alex, but he just shrugged apologetically. Liz swallowed and continued in a rushed voice, "Sheplayedwithhismind."

Maria blinked, trying to understand the words. Finally, once it all made sense, her eyes widened dramatically, she looked from one friend to the other. "She used that on you and you still _trust_ her? Trust _them_?"

Liz glanced around, realizing they were standing outside the Sheriff's office. This was her one last chance to make sure that Maria didn't spill everything. To make sure Max's secret was safe.

And Maria wanted her to explain why she trusted them.

"_I do trust you, Max. It's Tess I don't trust."_

"_You should. I trust her."_

Liz sighed and closed her eyes, frantically trying to figure out what to say. At last, she opened them and looked over at Maria. "I trust Tess. I trust all of them, because I trust Max. He saved my life. And I know that you don't trust them, and I know that you aren't going to change your mind on that any time soon. So, instead of trusting them, I'm going to ask you to trust me."

"How can I?" Maria whispered. "You _lied_ to me. You lied to me about something huge!"

Liz licked her suddenly dry lips and replied, "I know I did. And I know I shouldn't have. I wish I hadn't screwed this all up, I wish I had just…ducked when the shot rang out. But I _didn't_ duck, and Max _did_ heal me, and I _did_ lie to you. And everything got screwed up." She ran a hand through her hair, holding Maria's gaze for a beat. "And I _am_ sorry. But if you can't trust me on that, then trust me on this. You are my best friend, and I would _never_ do anything that I thought put you in danger. If the…Czechoslovakians…were a threat to you, to us, I would be the first person to turn them in. If nothing else, trust that my intentions are good."

Maria stared at Liz for a moment, her eyes unreadable. Then she turned and walked up the stairs to Valenti's office, her mind full of troubled and turbulent thoughts.

* * *

Max paced restlessly back and forth across the living room floor. He glanced continually at the clock, wondering what was going on. Had Maria reached Valenti's yet? Had she spilled? Or had Liz convinced her to stay silent? He glanced over at the phone, wanting to call Liz and ask, but he refrained. If Maria told Valenti the truth, he was going to find out, one way or another… 

"Max?" Mrs. Evans asked, walking into the room. "You alright?"

Max glanced back at his mother. "Yeah, I'm fine, Mom."

Mrs. Evans pursed her lips and stared at Max appraisingly. "Sheriff Valenti came by to see me a couple days ago. He said you were at the Crashdown at the time of the shooting."

Keeping his expression entirely neutral, he replied with a simple, affirmative, "Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Mrs. Evans asked. She walked over to the sofa and sunk into the cushions, gesturing for Max to join her. "You must have been so scared."

"I didn't want you to worry about me," Max replied quietly, looking down at his hands. "Nobody got hurt…" He swallowed and glanced quickly at his mother. "Why did the Sheriff want to talk to you?"

"Oh, just to see if you knew anything," Mrs. Evans replied. "He thought you might have recognized the shooters. You really should talk to him, you know."

"I don't know anything," Max answered, shrugging. "I don't think I would have anything to tell him that would be of any interest." He ran a hand through his hair and took a shaky breath.

Mrs. Evans nodded, accepting Max's words at face value. "No, I didn't think you would either, but still…" She smiled gently at Max and continued, "I really wish you had told me, Max. I'm your mother, I'm _supposed_ to worry about you."

Max stood up abruptly and shrugged uncomfortably. How was he supposed to explain to his mother that the reason he hadn't told her was because he didn't want too many people knowing and getting suspicious? That his great, ignoble reason for keeping silent was not to keep her from worrying, but to keep him safe?

Mrs. Evans got up slowly, her eyes still on her adopted son. He had been more withdrawn and secretive of late, although he was always like that growing up. She closed her eyes briefly and wished silently that she would, someday, understand her two children.

Max glanced over at the clock again, then shook his head in frustration. He expelled the breath he didn't realize he had been holding and shot a look at his mother. He saw the worry and hurt in her eyes. Swallowing back his annoyance at the unfairness of his situation, he wished silently that someday he would be able to tell her the truth.

After ten years of raising him and Isabel as her own children, God knew she deserved at least the honest truth.

* * *

"Get me a beer, boy," Hank grumbled sourly as he flipped through the channels. His eyes glued to the television, he did not see the sarcastic eye roll Michael sent at him. He did, however, notice the lack of an immediate answer, and turned around in his seat to see Michael staring gloomily out the window. 

"A beer!" he repeated, impatient. "Get me a beer."

Michael obeyed the request the second time, his steps angry. "Get a beer, boy," he mimicked. He yanked the refrigerator open and pulled out a beer can from the top shelf. "About the only thing you ever say to me," he snarled quietly to himself. "Like you couldn't get one yourself?"

He carried the beer over to his foster father and walked back to the window. Leaning on the wall, he stared through the grimy glass at the brilliant blue sky above him. The sound of the television set drifted over to him, but he tuned it out, focusing instead on his depressing thoughts.

Liz just had to run and tell Maria, didn't she? She couldn't have held her tongue? How hard was it to just keep a secret? To simply _not _talk? He closed his eyes and shook his head in frustration. He wanted to trust Liz. Hell, he _wanted _to trust a lot of people. But wanting wasn't enough, not when their lives were all at stake. God knows his past experiences with Hank had proven that...

How much longer would he have to wait before he knew if Maria talked? How much longer before the rest of their lives were decided?

* * *

Isabel ran a brush through her hair and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She could hear her mother and brother's voices from the floor below, but she couldn't make out any of the words. She rubbed her eyes and walked over to her bookshelf. Pulling out a copy of Shakespeare's Othello, she thumbed through the pages, thinking half-heartedly about starting the essay due the next week in English. Six pages, and she hadn't even read Othello yet… 

She tossed the book onto the bed. There was no way she would be able to focus right now. Not until she knew…

Why was life so unfair to them all? Why did they have to be aliens? Why did they have to lie to their parents every day? Why did Michael have to live with a horrible foster father? Why did Tess have to lose her first set of adopted parents? Why did Liz have to get shot? Why did Alex have to read her diary? Why did Maria have to be suspicious?

Why couldn't things just be easy for them? For once, why couldn't things be simple?

* * *

"…and then, he offered to drive me here so that I wouldn't have to walk," Trudy finished, beaming. She leaned back in the booth at the Crashdown and grinned happily, while Jessica rolled her eyes and Sara laughed silently, one hand covering her mouth. 

Tess, however, widened her eyes in disapproval and said, "Is that why Kyle said he couldn't give me a rise to the Crashdown? Because he wanted alone time with you in the car?" She shook her head in mock anger and continued, "I had to walk the whole _five blocks_."

"That must have been so hard for you," Sara deadpanned.

Jessica and Trudy dissolved into a fit of giggles, while Tess lifted her chin airily and tossed her hair over one shoulder. Sara bit her lip to keep from laughing and met Tess' gaze with raised eyebrows.

"Can I get you anything?"

The four girls turned to see Liz standing next to their table, waiting for them to order. Trudy and Jessica instantly stopped laughing and Jessica said, "Onion rings." She refused to call the orders by their proper 'alien' names, dubbing it pointless and immature. Why call them Saturn Rings, when they were just onion rings?

Taking their cue from Jessica, both Trudy and Sara ordered using 'normal' names.

"Chocolate milkshake," Sara requested haughtily, barely sparing Liz a glance.

"A Cherry Coke, please," Trudy asked politely.

Liz nodded and turned to Tess. For a moment, the two met eyes, and Liz saw the fear and worry that flashed briefly through Tess' sky blue eyes. It was followed by a accusatory glare, and Liz swallowed, looking away briefly, her face flushing red. The silence stretched for a moment, then Tess ordered coolly, "Water."

Liz nodded and left, and Tess turned back to the other three girls. "What was that about?" Jessica asked, her perceptive gaze quickly picking up the silent conversation that had passed between the Tess and the brunette waitress.

"Nothing," Tess replied dismissively. When the three girls continued to stare at her, not buying her response, she looked down at her hands and bit her lip, wishing she had an easy answer. Finally, she explained, "I don't like my family getting hurt."

The others nodded, accepting the vague comment and interpreting it to their own satisfaction. Tess and Kyle had always been close, in a constantly bickering, viciously teasing, sarcastic mocking sort of way. No one guessed the other meaning of the word 'family.'

Tess twisted in her seat and glanced up at the clock on the wall. She wondered briefly how long it had been since Maria had gone into the meeting with Jim. And how much longer until she came out.

And whether or not the FBI would be following her when she came.

* * *

"So, Ms. DeLuca, I am sure you understand why you are here," Valenti said, trying his best to sound gentle. He folded his hands in his lap and smiled ingratiatingly at Maria, but the smile did not reach his eyes. Instead, his eyes were filled with an almost desperate light, as though he hoped Maria could provide him with the answers he so urgently needed. 

Maria nodded, her eyes downcast. She was unable to meet the Sheriff's piercing gaze.

Valenti frowned at the girl, wondering briefly what she knew. It was so clear from her posture and body language that she knew something, something she didn't want anyone else to know. But she seemed also torn between two decisions, unsure which was the right way to go.

"Maria?" Valenti reached across and placed a hand on young girl's shoulder. "Whatever it is, you can tell me. You can _trust_ me."

Maria closed her eyes, Liz's words suddenly rushing back to her.

_They aren't a threat to us!_

She glanced up at Valenti and bit her lip. She wanted to believe Liz so badly, but how could she? How could she possibly trust these…Czechoslovakians? She didn't know a thing about them. She didn't know who they were, or where they were from, or what they were capable of. And Liz wanted her to _trust_ them?

_But if you can't trust me on that, then trust me on this. You are my best friend, and I would never do anything that I thought put you in danger. _

Trust. It all came back to trust. Who did she trust? Who was telling the truth? Who was she supposed to believe.

And quite suddenly, she knew that her mind was made up.

She knew to trust. She knew what to do.

She had known all along.

Maria swallowed and slowly met Valenti's piercing gaze. She licked her dry lips and hesitated, indecision written clearly on her face. Finally, after a long pause, she said, "I'm sorry, Sheriff. I knew about Max all along, I should have told you earlier. I never wanted this to happen, please believe me. I know about you and my Mom and your secret dates, and I don't want you to think that I was keeping things from you because then maybe you would think that my mother was lying also, but she is so happy with you and…" Suddenly realizing she had broached the topic of her mother's love life, Maria looked away, horrified. "Forget I said that," she ordered in a quiet voice.

"You know about Amy and I?" Valenti asked incredulously.

"Well, you aren't really that good at being…discreet," Maria explained.

Valenti made a mental note to find out if either Kyle or Tess knew about his clandestine relationship with Maria's mother, then glanced back at the younger DeLuca and said, "How long have you known about Max?" He could feel his pulse racing, his heart quickening. This might be the answer to his search. This might be the answer to everything.

"I don't know," Maria answered, shaking her head. "A couple of weeks, maybe? Not that long. But it was really the shooting that made everything so clear, you know. The way Max ran to her to see if she was okay. He was so panicked…" she let the sentence drift off.

"What exactly happened?" Valenti pressed.

Maria swallowed and looked away. "Don't take this the wrong way, Sheriff. Liz is a really sweet girl, and I know she made a mistake, but she really does care about Kyle. They were just drifting apart so much, and then Max was there, and…she and Kyle were just at odds so frequently, they were on the way out anyway…" she paused, realizing she was babbling.

Valenti narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean, Ms. DeLuca? What does Kyle have to do with anything? What _are_ you talking about?"

Maria turned wide eyes to Valenti. "You know, about Max and Liz seeing each other while she was still dating Kyle?" She paused, watching the surprise and disappointment flicker across Valenti's face. "Wait, what did _you_ mean?"

* * *

"Well, what did you say?" Liz asked worriedly as she watched Maria walked into the Crashdown. 

Maria stared at Liz for a long time, her expression unreadable, then she took off her long coat to reveal the ridiculous alien uniform underneath. She reached behind Liz and grabbed a set of antenna, planted them firmly on her head, and replied, "Do you see the FBI behind me?"

Relief flooded Liz' face. "You lied," she whispered.

Maria nodded slowly. "Like a rug."

* * *

Pierce flipped through the file in his hand, his smile grim. It was the file of an agent, one of the best in the Bureau. An agent who had applied for a transfer recently, and who had seemed more than willing to take that transfer to Roswell. And more than that, she had seemed quite capable of fulfilling her assigned task. 

He dropped the file onto the desk, pleased with his decision. Then he walked from the room, leaving the folder lying, face up, on top of his papers and books. The light from the desk lamp illuminated the named printed on the manila cover.

Julia Topolski.

* * *

Next Chapter: Friend and Foe Alike 

Due: Wed 12/14


	11. Friend and Foe Alike

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's Note: Thanks to all who reviewed! Okay, I don't really have anything else to say so... on with the story!

* * *

Chapter Ten: Friend and Foe Alike

"Bad day?" Tess asked in a highly amused voice as Valenti stormed into the house and slammed the door behind him. The Sheriff barely gave her a second glance, only sparing a curt nod before disappearing into his bedroom. Tess watched him go, relief hidden behind her impassive eyes.

"Wonder what that was about?" Kyle remarked as he flipped casually through the channels, searching for an appropriate show to watch. He leaned back on the sofa, and stretched, his eyes trained to the television as a football game appeared on screen.

Tess said nothing. She knew exactly what it was about. She had seen Maria enter the Crashdown, had seen Liz run to her best friend, had seen the relief that flooded the brunette humans face as she heard whatever it was Maria said.

They were safe.

For now.

Tess stood up and said in a would-be calm voice, "I'm going to get changed."

"Are you going out tonight?" Kyle asked disinterestedly.

"Yeah. You?"

"Mm," came Kyle's noncommittal response.

Tess shot him a shrewd look. "With Trudy?" she questioned sweetly, her voice dripping with honey. Kyle said nothing, but Tess could see the slight red flush that graced his face. She smiled and turned to go, her thoughts instantly drifting to darker matters.

Valenti.

She paused outside his bedroom door, listening to the sound of movements from within the room. Biting her lip, she swallowed and shot one last apprehensive glance to make sure Kyle wasn't watching, before focusing her mind on the person behind the door.

The feeling of controlling someone's mind was so completely indescribable, she had been unable to explain it to the other hybrids. The way a mind looked, full of interconnecting memories and half-forgotten dreams that danced around each other is a swirl of color and light… There was a pattern there, somewhere, beneath the mess of thoughts, but Tess had never been able to find it. Controlling a mind was one thing, but understanding how it worked was far beyond anything she could ever achieve. Even just finding the right memory to tamper with, the right emotion to alter, was hard enough.

It took longer than she would have liked, there were too many memories that had to be adjusted, and a million emotions that had to be modified. Once it was done, Tess opened her eyes and sagged back against the wall, mentally drained. What she had done to Alex had been simple enough, but this…

This was much more than she had ever done before.

It left her physically and mentally exhausted, and filled with a strange sense of regret.

* * *

"Sheriff?" Deputy 'Patroller' Hannigan was surprised to get a call from the Sheriff so late. He glanced up at the clock. It was after eight, and the Sheriff usually did not continue any of his work after five, unless of course there was an emergency. 

The Patroller sat up straighter in his seat, listening to the voice at the other end. He nodded, even though he knew the Sheriff could not see him, at the end of each sentence his boss said. He licked his dry lips at the end of the conversation and hung up the receiver with a puzzled look on his face.

The Sheriff did not want to meet with Max Evans anymore. In fact, the Sheriff wanted to drop the shooting case entirely. Yesterday he had been excited, this morning he had been grinning with anticipation about the upcoming interview, and now…

Now he wanted to drop it?

Something wasn't right about the scenario. But the Patroller didn't care. It wasn't his job to care. He was in charge of preventing teenagers from pulling stupid pranks, drinking while they were still underage, and other such unruly and disorderly behavior. If the Sheriff wanted to drop the case, let him do it.

What did it matter anyway? It was just a shooting.

* * *

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Maria asked worriedly as she followed her best friend across the neatly clipped front lawn to the window at the side of the house. She glanced back and forth through the night, as though expecting something to jump out of the shadows. 

"You said you trusted them," Liz replied, rolling her eyes.

"I said I trusted _you_," Maria answered, crossing her arms and glaring at Liz.

Liz sighed and placed a reassuring hand on Maria's shoulder. "I told you, Maria, that if they were a threat to us, I would have turned them in. I will never do _anything_ to put you or Alex in danger." She turned and took the last few steps to the window, then knocked sharply on the glass with her knuckles.

"Do you always go through the window?" Maria asked, raising an eyebrow.

Liz paused, frowning. At first, she had used the window because it seemed like the logical way to go to avoid anyone knowing that she was visiting Max. That was right after the shooting, when she was still dating Kyle and Valenti was still suspicious of Max. Things were different now, she was dating Max. She could just use the front door.

Before Liz could vocalize her thoughts, the window slid open to reveal Max looking out at them. His eyes widened slightly as he saw Maria, but he said nothing, simply stepped aside and allowed them to climb through.

Maria and Liz looked around the moment they had entered the room. Isabel and Michael were sitting on Max's bed. Isabel glowered at them, while Michael stared at them, his face unemotional, a slightly calculating look in his eyes. His gaze lingered on Maria a moment longer than necessary, before he turned to look at Max.

"Hey," Liz murmured at last, breaking the awkward silence.

"Hey," Max replied, grinning slightly as he reached out to take Liz's hand. A tremor ran through his body as their fingers touched, but he ignored it, turning to give Isabel and Michael a fake smile.

It worked on Michael, the brooding hybrid missed the connection that had flown between Max and the brunette beauty holding his hand. But Isabel had seen the shiver of emotion in Max's eyes, the way Liz's skin had almost jumped at his touch, and her eyes narrowed into a shrewd stare as she coolly returned her brother's smile.

Max grimaced inwardly. He didn't want to have to deal with Isabel's questions and comments. Why couldn't she be as oblivious as Michael?

It was then that Liz realized that Maria was literally shaking. Yanking her hand out of Max's grip, she turned to her friend with worry. Maria was staring determinedly at the spot a little above and to the right of Isabel's head, unwilling to meet the gaze of anyone in the room.

"Maria?" Liz asked, concerned.

Maria swallowed and turned to her friend. "Yeah?" she asked, her voice small.

"Why don't we sit down and talk?" Max suggested, sending Maria a warm smile. She was clearly uncomfortable around them, and Max wanted to help relieve her fear. They were no threat to her, and he wanted to prove that.

"What were you talking about when we interrupted?" Liz asked, as she gratefully sank into a chair by Max's desk. Maria sat down on the floor in front of her, resting back against her legs, while Max leaned casually against the wall near the door, keeping one ear open for any warning sounds of his parents.

"Flashes," Isabel answered coolly, her lips twisting into a slight smirk. "Flashes, and how to get them…"

Liz blushed crimson and looked away. Max shot an angry glare at his sister, while Michael narrowed his eyes slightly, still unused to the idea that they were willingly sharing information with people outside the group. He glanced over at Max, his expression stony and cold, silently asking him if he thought confiding everything is these people was such a good idea. Max, however, ignored him, his gaze now on Liz. Maria, meanwhile, had turned confused eyes first to Isabel, then, realizing she was actually looking at an _alien_, she twisted abruptly and looked up at Liz.

"Flashes?" Maria asked.

"Yes, you know, Liz has seen a vision of what our past may have been like," Isabel continued. Michael twisted sharply to look at her, but she shrugged carelessly at him. If Liz hadn't told Maria about the flashes yet, she would soon, so there was no reason to lie about it. Even though part of her _did _squirm at the idea of adding others to the group...

"She what?" Maria was flabbergasted. "How? Isn't that like an alien thing?"

"Well, you have to be…in _contact_…with an alien for it to work…" Isabel said snidely, her eyes glinting with amusement as Liz's face flushed even deeper.

"Contact?" Maria asked, bewildered. Then realization hit her and she opened her mouth in surprise, no words coming out. Finally, she managed to choke out an "Oh…" before lapsing into silence.

The silence stretched unbearably between the five of them until Michael said in a blunt and straight-forward manner, "So basically, we were talking about Max and Liz making out."

* * *

Max slammed his locker door shut and spun around to face his sister angrily. "That wasn't funny!" he snarled. "Are you trying to get Liz to hate us?" 

Isabel shrugged, her eyes sparkling with pleasure. "Do I look like I care what Liz thinks?" she retorted. She ran a hand through her blonde hair and turned away, staring through the crowded hallway. The night before had been awkward to say the least, with Liz embarrassed by the subject they had been talking about, Maria still nervous to be in the presence of actual aliens, and Isabel, Michael, and Max still somewhat angry at each other.

Max sighed and closed his eyes, wondering how much convincing it would take for Isabel to start being decent to the three humans who now knew about them. He licked his lips and frowned as he realized it would take quite a bit more to get Michael to trust them, and it would be almost impossible to get Tess to accept them. Isabel was really the least of his problems.

"We haven't told Tess yet," Isabel said abruptly as she noticed Tess' presence at the end of the hallway. The fourth hybrid was standing at her locker, obviously flirting with someone, although because of the throng of people in the hall, Isabel could not see who.

"Told her what?" Max asked, confused about the sudden change in subject.

"The flashes. We haven't told her what Liz saw."

Max nodded slowly. "I know. I keep meaning to, but things always…something just seems to come up, you know?" Conversations with Tess were never easy, especially as of late.

"Yeah," Isabel breathed slowly, heavily. "I know."

Liz appeared at that moment, making her way towards them. Isabel took one glance and the foolish grin on Max's face, rolled her eyes, and slipped away. Her disappearance went unnoticed by the other two, who were both staring solely at each other.

"Hey," Max said softly.

"Hey," Liz replied. She ran a hand through her hair, then pushed a few strands out of her eyes and said, "I forgot to ask you last night, but did everything work out with Valenti? Was Tess able to take care of it?"

Max nodded slowly. He had been incredibly relieved to get the short and curt call from Tess last night. She had told him everything was taken care of, then hung up without giving him a chance to ask questions. But if she said everything was taken care of, then he believed her. Valenti was no longer a threat.

One less problem to deal with.

"Good," Liz said. There was an awkward silence for a moment, then both Liz and Max started to speak at the same time.

"Max, I-"

"Liz, do you-"

Liz stopped and laughed slightly, gesturing for Max to finish his question. He looked at her for a long time, his gaze boring into her, and she felt as though she could get lost into those tawny eyes. She held her breath for a long moment, waiting for the question she was praying he was going to ask.

"Do you want to go out with me someday this weekend?" Max asked at last.

Liz's heart suddenly did cartwheels and delight leapt into her eyes, as she smiled and nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

* * *

Alex walked into the classroom and looked around for an empty seat. There was one next to Isabel near the front of the room, and one next to Cliff and Jessica at the back. He glanced quickly between the two, and frowned. He didn't want to sit at the back and have to listen to the two popular teens insult him and all his friends, but he also didn't want to sit next to Isabel. 

He was always flustered around Isabel. Even when he was dating Maria, Isabel had been his dream girl. The paragon of beauty and kindness, intelligent but not geeky, somewhat vain but not arrogant or narcissistic. She had always been nice to him in the past, whenever their paths crossed, which granted was not often.

Of course, she probably hated his guts right now.

With a sigh of resignation, Alex walked over to the seat next to Isabel. he dropped his belongings next to his chair and sat down, flashing her a tentative smile. She raised an eyebrow at him in response, and turned away. He grimaced inwardly, but reminded himself that this was better than sitting with Cliff or Jessica.

Better to be ignored than insulted.

Isabel turned back to him suddenly, her eyes fixing him with a angry stare. "Just because you're keeping our secret doesn't mean we are automatically in your debt," she hissed.

"I didn't say it did!" Alex snapped, stung. He crossed his arms over his chest and continued, "I am merely sitting here because the only other option was sitting with them," and he jerked his thumb towards Cliff and Jessica.

Isabel swallowed back her sharp retort and nodded. "Good," she spat in a low voice. "Because if you are just taking this seat because you want to talk to me about something, I'd suggest…"

"Don't flatter yourself, I'm not here because of you." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and Alex gaped in surprise at what he had said, turning away quickly so that Isabel wouldn't see the horror in his eyes. Most of the school knew him as the quiet person who never got mad at anyone. And he never did. He had no temper whatsoever.

Then what was it about Isabel that got under his skin like that?

Isabel's eyes widened slightly. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying something else she regretted and turned away. Staring determinedly at the front of the room, she silently cursed herself.

She liked Alex. The loyalty he had shown to Liz and Maria had been startling and impressive. The fact that he had promised to keep their secret had been encouraging. And there was something about him, about the way he didn't mind if people thought he was a geek, about his dedication to his friends and family, about the fact that he never lost his temper at anyone…

Well, _almost_ never.

Isabel swallowed the bitter regret that was quickly forming and closed her eyes momentarily. He had lost her temper at her. Obviously, she was not high on the list of people that he liked. She wondered briefly if she even made the list at all.

Probably not.

Well, no use crying over spilt milk. If he didn't like her, then he didn't like her, and that was that.

* * *

Maria watched as Liz bounced towards her and rolled her eyes. She had seen this look on Liz's face once before, when Kyle had first asked her out on a date. Of course, the glow that radiated from her then was nothing compared to what she looked like now, but it was the same sort expression. And it was making Maria sick. Not that she wasn't happy for her friend, not that she didn't find people who were in love adorable, but... 

It would have just been so much easier to be happy for Liz if she had a boyfriend herself.

Mentally reminding herself that _she _broke up with _Alex_, and not the other way around, she waved cheerily to Liz and asked slyly, "So should I assume you and Max are going to be making some more flashes?"

Liz has the decency to look slightly embarassed, but her grin got bigger and her eyes widened. "This weekend," she gushed happily. She leaned against the locker for a moment, staring off into space, thinking about Max. "The thing about these...Czechoslovakians...is they've got these really soulful eyes," she murmured.

Maria barely managed to contain her laughter and replied, "Maybe yours does, but I doubt Michael or Tess do. Even Isabel..."

Liz swatted Maria on the arm and replied, "Well, Michael's got the whole brooding-thing going for him, and Isabel has the 'look at me I've got the perfect body and the money to buy the perfect clothes to wear on it' thing, and Tess has the-"

"Ice Queen thing?" a voice said.

Maria and Liz both spun around to see Tess standing in behind them, her arms crossed over her chest. She was regarding them with open disdain, but behind her eyes was something else. Anger, frustration, fear, hurt...? Some emotion neither Maria nor Liz could quite identify.

"Tess," Maria said quietly, looking at the fourth alien. She didn't know whether to be afraid of her or not. She knew Tess could control minds, she knew Tess _had _played with Alex's mind, and that made her slightly uneasy. But she also knew Tess' big secret, and knowledge meant power.

"Maria," Tess mimicked. She flicked a blonde curl out of her face and said to Liz, "Jim's dropped the case."

"I know," Liz replied. Tess's eyebrows shot into the air, and Liz explained hurriedly, "Max told me."

"Did he now?" Tess murmured icily. "Lucky you." Her eyes narrowed somewhat, still slightly disconcerted by the fact that Max told this brunette everything about them. "I'll have to mention to him that he should inform us when he shares information with outsiders." She said it under her breath, more to herself than either of the human girls, but Maria heard it and bristled.

"Don't get high and mighty, Tess," she snapped, her voice low and angry. "Don't forget, we may be outsiders from your point of view, but we know your secret. So unless you want the information to accidently slip..." Maria's tone left little doubt about what she was implying, or the fact that it was a threat. Next to her, Liz stiffened warily, glancing quickly back and forth between Tess and Maria and waiting for the possible conflict to arise.

Tess leaned forward, placing her hand on the locker next to Maria. Although she was shorter than the human girl, she managed to give herself the appearance of towering height. Her eyes narrowing into thin slits of blue ice, she said quietly, "I really wouldn't do that if I were you. Trust me, Maria. I'm _not _a good person to have as an enemy."

There was no reason for her to even consider tampering with Maria's mind, the human girl was shaking with fear as it was. Tess gave her a chilling smile and turned to go. She paused after a few steps and glanced over her shoulder at Liz. "By the way, the reason I told about Jim was to warn you to be careful around him. He could break out of the..." she glanced around the hallway, making sure no one was listening to her conversation, then said, "the mind-warp if you remind him of his suspicions. And if he breaks out...well, the four of us-what do you call it, Czechoslovakians?" she asked sneeringly, "the four of us won't be the only ones to pay."

She turned and walked away, leaving the implied threat lingering in the air behind her.

* * *

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Max demanded, not bothering to keep his voice down or keep his temper under control. He was pacing back and forth across the cement parking lot in front of Kyle's car, glaring angrily at an immensely unperturbed Tess, who was sitting on the hood of the car, waiting for her brother to arrive and give her a ride home. "Liz goes out of her way to convince Maria that we aren't dangerous, and then you go and threaten Maria? Are you out of your mind?" 

"She threatened me, I threatended her," Tess replied.

Max rolled his eyes. Liz had told him the entire story, and as far as he could tell, the threat Maria had made had been in the heat of the moment. There was no way that Tess could have actually believed that she would expose them now. She had lied for them once already... "Please, you were just upset that I was talking to Liz about Valenti and the investigaition without running it all by you first," Max snapped, unwittingly echoing Maria's earlier words.

"Hello, can we get back to the flashes?" Tess asked, changing the subject. Max had initially approached her to inform her that Liz had seen flashes when they kissed, and somehow the conversation had gotten side-tracked. "You were about to tell me what Liz saw."

"Fine," Max muttered after a moment of silence. "But this conversation in far from over." He turned and glanced around the parking lot, which was starting to fill with students leaving their classes, and said slowly,"Flashes of home. Of wherever it is we are from."

Tess swallowed. "Oh…" She looked away, her face pensive. "What _exactly _did she see?" she asked, trying to keep her voice light and casual.

Max could here both the fear and anticipation in her voice. She wanted to know about the past life, and she was scared to find the answers. "Not much," he answered. "Bits and pieces of a war. Blood, dead people… I was thinking, maybe the war was the reason we left?"

Tess nodded, accepting this. "Maybe…" She closed her eyes and tried to focus her troubled thoughts. It had been so long since they had looked for the answers. Every time they had tried, they had found only red hearings and dead ends. And now…now it seemed like pieces of the answers might have bee right there all along, waiting for them.

In Liz.

In Liz and Max and their connection.

"Can you recreate the flashes?" Tess asked.

Max raised an eyebrow at her. "You want me to…?"

"Kiss Liz again?" Tess finished the sentence. "Frighteningly enough, yes, I do," she answered. There was a silence, then Tess continued, "I'm sure Michael and Isabel would agree."

"They already have," Max admitted. When Isabel had told him that he should continue making out with Liz so that they could discover more about their past, he had almost died from embarrassment. The last thing he wanted was to have a discussion about his love life with Isabel.

With his _sister_.

Not that he didn't like the idea of making out with Liz…

"How long ago did this happen?" Tess asked abruptly, pulling Max out of his thoughts.

"A couple days," Max replied without thinking. The minute he saw the darkening of Tess' eyes, he realized his mistake.

"A couple days and you are only telling me now?" Tess spat, her voice icy and bitter. "We've known something about our past lives for a couple of _days_?"

Any other time, Max would have rushed to come up with words to appease Tess. But today… today Liz had agreed to go out with him, and nothing, not even a furious Tess, could upset him. Today was a good day.

"You were busy, I didn't want to distract you," Max answered glibly.

"That should be my decision," Tess replied coldly, her eyes narrowed into thin slits. "This is something I would _want_ to be distracted with."

"Funny, because you normally complain that we tell you too much, ask you to do too much, rely on you too much…" Max replied, his eyes narrowing as well, refusing to back down.

Tess was at a loss for words. For a moment, she simply sputtered, then she said, "You do. You tell me what I don't need to know and then withhold the information I might actually want." She pushed herself off the hood of her car, and continued angrily, "I know you don't want to be friends with me…"

"That isn't what happened, and you know it!" Max hissed, his temper flaring. He glanced around the parking lot, making sure the other students were not eavesdropping on the conversation, then continued, "We never pushed you away, Tess. You _chose_ to leave _us_."

"I never asked for things to be so strained!" Tess snapped back. "Just because I didn't hold on to the friendship as strongly as Isabel of Michael did…"

"You didn't hold on to it at all," Max cut in. He shook his head and gave a dark chuckle. "You don't want our friendship, you don't want our dislike. You don't want us to confide in you, you don't want us to keep secrets from you. What the hell _do_ you want from us?" he demanded, his face red with anger.

"I want you to remember that I am part of all of this!" Tess shot back. "And that anything Liz sees _is_ my concern." She shook her head in frustration. "Ever since you healed Liz, it's like you are forgetting that we used to be friends."

"The key words there being 'used to.' Past tense. As in not any more," Max replied bitterly. "That was your choice, Tess. You decided to be friends with Jessica and Sara and Cliff. You decided to walk away from us, not the other way around."

"And do you think I would have made that choice if you weren't pushing me away? I was never close to you, not the way Isabel and Michael were," Tess replied.

"You never let us close to you," Max replied. "You've never been made it easy for any of us to get along with you and I know it is probably because of what happened to Andrew and Jessica Harding, but…"

"Shut. Up." Tess hissed, her words filled with a fiery venom Max rarely heard. He knew the instant he heard them he had gone to far, and regretted what he had said. Although it was true, Tess never had been the easiest person to deal with, it also wasn't entirely because of what happened to her first set foster parents. There was much more there, buried under the surface, and the strained relationship between the aliens was proof of that. And whatever Tess said to defend herself, a lot of it had been her fault, and Max knew that, deep down, she knew it.

There was an awkward silence, then Max said softly, slowly, "This argument's been building for a while, Tess. And maybe if I hadn't healed Liz we could have delayed it. But healing Liz only catalyzed the conflict, it didn't create it. Because these problems have been here for a long time, and you _know_ that." As he said the words, Max felt a sudden rush of something strange coursing through him. It was as though the words were his own, and yet not... As though he had spoken them before, in a different time, a different place.

Tess licked her lips and stared at Max for a moment, her eyes unreadable. Finally, she nodded once in assent to Max's words. She saw the confused and pensive look wash over his features and looked away, her own mind on equally troubled thoughts. There was something there, in the conversation, something so familair, and yet...

It was like a half-forgotten dream that still lingered about her during the day, making her jump at the oddest times.

"If you want to be our friend, fine," Max continued. "If you want to be our enemy, we can deal with that too. But you can't be both. You can't save us from Jim and then bully Maria. It doesn't work that way. You are either all the way in or all the way out." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "God, Tess, it took Liz a good hour to calm Maria down after you _talked _to her."

"She'll get over it," Tess replied indifferently, and again, the words were familiar yet foreign. They came easily off her tongue, but still sounded so strange to her own ears.

"She shouldn't have to get over it," Max snapped. "You shouldn't have done anything in the first place. Not when we are still waiting to see if your mind-warp worked on Valenti... There's too much at stake right now." Max began to pace angrily, upset my Tess' behaivor and words, frustrated at the strange feeling he could not identify, could not supress.

"And whose fault is that?" Tess replied waspishly with a pointed glare. "_I'm_ the one who cleaned up most of the mess _you _made."

Max bit his lip and swallowed his angry retort. There was a silence, long and insufferable, before Max said, "I know. And I..._we_...are all grateful for that. But... I kept hoping you would change, Tess. I kept hoping you would want to be friends with us again. I kept hoping that the eight-year-old girl I loved would come out again. I'm tired of waiting. We are _all _tired of waiting. Are you with us or not?"

"It isn't that black and white," Tess objected, and as the words left her mouth she _knew _she had said them before.

"It's always been that black and white with us, Tess," Max replied, his eyes guarded. "You've just been too busy hating us to see it." He turned away from the petite alien and started to walk away. He paused after a moment and glanced back at Tess. "When you figure out where you stand, let us know." He held her gaze for a beat, then continued in a softer voice, "No matter what, you are still family. And we'll wait for you forever if need be." His voice hardened into one of coolness and authority, a sort of comanding tone that Tess had never heard before. "But don't expect us to include you in everything we do in the meantime. Until you are completely in the group, consider yourself, for all intents and purposes, out of it."

"I already do," Tess murmured, her voice choked. As she watched Max walk away, she felt a bitter feeling of regret fill her chest. There were so many things she wanted to say, so many things she wanted to tell him, tell them all, but... Max was right. They weren't friends any more. And sometimes some things just _can't_ be said, no matter how much you may want to say them.

As the two aliens turned away from each other, neither could ignore the feeling that they had been there, had had that conversation, once before.

* * *

Next Chapter: Inevitable 

Due Date: Sunday 12/18

Alright, this pretty much starts the fall out between Tess and Max, and Max's rise as the leader of the group. So Tess' character is going to be a little bit more minor now as I focus on the others. Which means (for all you CC shippers) that M/M and I/A should _start _to appear in a few chapters.


	12. Inevitable

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's Note: Five days have passed since the last chapter. I say that somewhere in the story, but I just wanted to emphasize it so that you all know: Five days have passed. This is a very actionless chapter. Basically, it is a plot device to move from one part of the story to the next, but I promise the next chapter will have more alien stuff in it. Oh, and you might want to read the Author's Note at the end of the chapter.

* * *

Chapter Eleven: Inevitable

Max was the first to arrive. He parked his car near one of the many rock formations and climbed slowly from his seat, blinking in the scorching heat. The desert stretched out for miles around him, the white and yellow sand mixing with the reddish tan rocks. Up ahead, a set of bluffs rose from the ground, casting a slight shadow. Behind him and to the left, the sleepy town of Roswell sat, unaware of the turbulent struggle for safety four of its citizens had been in since the day they were…hatched.

Max slammed the car door shut and walked towards the shadow of the bluffs. They met here, the four hybrids, whenever they had something important to discuss. For some unknown reason, they felt a connection with the place, a sort of sense of belonging and safety.

Max had called the group meeting, realizing the necessity of bringing all seven of them together to talk. Liz and Alex had agreed readily, and Maria, after a bit of prodding, had consented to the plan. Michael and Isabel hadn't even bothered questioning Max's decision, and had shown no surprise at the fact that he wanted to meet by the bluffs. Tess had been a little bit more difficult to persuade, mostly because she had been ignoring the others for the past several days.

It had been five days since Tess had mind-warped Valenti, since Max and Tess had argued. In those five days, the other six had seen very little of the petite blonde. Tess had taken Max's words to heart, and removed herself almost entirely from the group. Although the distance was a somewhat welcome relief from the almost constant arguments they had had before, it also left the other three aliens with a strange sense of loss, one that they could neither explain nor understand.

Isabel and Michael were the next to arrive. Isabel stepped out of the car and walked over to her brother immediately, seeking shelter from the broiling sun. Standing in the shade of the bluffs, she surveyed the desert and remarked, "Did we really have to bring them here?"

"This is the best place for us to meet," Max replied quietly. Far away from prying eyes and eavesdropping ears, they could discuss the pressing matter of their safety with the knowledge that their conversation would go unnoticed.

"I know," Isabel assented reluctantly. "But it is _our_ spot. Your bringing in outsiders."

Five days, and Isabel still considered the humans outsiders. Not that that was any surprise. Michael probably considered them outsiders as well, but he had fallen back into his taciturn and monosyllabic ways, and Max had been unable to start a conversation with him. Any time Max so much as mentioned Liz, Michael would roll his eyes in sarcasm and change the subject, still uncomfortable with the 'lovey-dovey' stuff.

As Michael joined the brother and sister, another car appeared, and soon Maria, Alex, and Liz were walking up the desert incline towards the other three. Liz immediately smiled warmly at Max, who gave her hand a gentle squeeze. Maria jerked her head in greeting and Alex muttered hello, then the six lapsed into an awkward silence.

Things between Isabel and Alex were still a bit strained from the conversation in class five days ago. Alex, frustrated with himself that he had lost his temper at Isabel, had refused to say another word to her, hoping that his self-imposed silence would keep him from saying anything else he would regret. Isabel for her part, determined that Alex didn't like her, had turned her attention to the other boys in the class.

Maria meanwhile was still a bit jumpy around the aliens. Her fears of being murdered or dissected or brainwashed in her sleep were all but gone now, but the lingering trepidation remained. The fall out between Tess and Max had eased things a bit, as Maria now no longer had to worry about Tess making idle threats or mocking her in the hallway at school. Maria welcomed the distance from the blonde, because she alone knew that it might not last long. She had ascertained that she was the only one of the teenagers that knew about her mother and the Sheriff's clandestine relationship, and therefore she was the only one who knew that she might soon end up with a mother who was seriously and steadily dating Kyle Valenti's and Tess Harding's father.

And that scared her much more than the fact that aliens were real did.

And Valenti had dropped the investigation. He no longer seemed to care that something alien may have happened at the Crashdown. In fact, he had dismissed the entire thing as ridiculous, mentioning to Kyle that the whole idea of aliens was absurd, and he was not going to end up discredited like his father.

No, things had not been perfect. But they had gone much better than anyone could have expected, given all that had happened. Everyone had fallen into a pattern, and despite the sometimes strained relationships and awkward moments between the members of the group, they were safe and secure, and relatively happy. All in all, everything seemed…okay.

The last car appeared, and Tess stepped out of it. Her blonde hair was swept away from her face in a high ponytail, and her blue eyes were covered with dark-lens sunglasses. She walked towards the others slowly, climbing carefully over the rocks in her high heel sandals. She reached the others, crossed her arms over her chest, and said to Max, "Well? Let's start."

And the meeting began.

"Basically, I thought we should just update on where we are and what is going on," Max said, sitting down on the rocks and watching as everyone else took seats as well. "Valenti has been taken care of," he inclined his head to Tess, "and Liz and I are still trying to discover more about the flashes…" He blushed slightly, realizing exactly what he had implied.

Michael smirked, Isabel looked slightly grossed-out, and Tess rolled her eyes impatiently.

"Have you found anything out during your _investigation_?" Maria asked, trying to keep her voice nonchalant. She was having a difficult time restraining the giggles that were threatening to come out at the sight of Liz's mortified expression.

"Liz keeps seeing a war," Max answered quickly, his gaze fixed on his girlfriend. "We think that this war may have had something to do with why we left. We're still…looking into it."

"We just need to make sure to lay low," Isabel reminded Max sharply. "Kiss Liz all you want, but stay away from the Sheriff. Just mentioning these flashes around him could break the mind-warp."

Tess nodded in agreement, her lips thinning into a straight line. "Stay away from Kyle also," she advised. "Anything he hears generally tends to get back to Jim."

Liz winced briefly at the mention of Kyle. She had valued the friendship she had with him, and was immensely sorry about what had happened. Every time she had tried to talk to him, however, he had blown her off, informing her that he had no interest in anything she had to say. And although she could not blame him for his feelings, it still hurt her to know that she had probably destroyed what could have been a great friendship.

But when she looked into Max's deep brown eyes, she couldn't imagine being with anyone other than him. And her relationship with him, at least, was one she was not sorry about.

"So keep our guard up?" Alex asked, avoiding meeting either Isabel or Tess' gaze.

"But don't act too guarded," Michael replied.

"Right," Isabel added, nodding at Michael and shooting a hesitant glance at Alex. Alex looked away, and she sighed inwardly. Mentally reminding herself that there was no point in morning a relationship that could never be, she continued, "We don't want to stand out."

"Blend in," Max agreed. "Try to act normal."

"You aren't normal," Liz pointed out, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

Isabel stiffened at the comment, but said nothing. She hated being reminded of the fact that she could never fit in with everyone one else. But Liz, her eyes trained solely on Max, did not see Isabel's reaction.

Max laughed softly and shrugged. "What's so great about being normal?"

Tess and Isabel locked gazes for a moment, each one thinking that they knew _exactly_ how to answer that question.

What was so great about being different?

"Is that all?" Tess asked, standing up. "I need to get back."

"Got something important to do?" Isabel asked sneeringly. The fall out between Max and Tess had abruptly and drastically changed the dynamic of the group, and Isabel no longer felt the need to appease Tess all the time. Max had suddenly become the leader, and Tess had disappeared from the group almost entirely.

"Not really," Tess replied candidly. "I just don't particularly want to hang around with all of you."

"Would it kill you to be nice to us?" Isabel snapped back.

"I don't know," Tess replied, her lips turning into a slight smirk. "Maybe. I don't want to risk it."

Max rolled his eyes and reprimanded the two girls, "Come on, don't start. Can't we just get a long for one more minute?" His gaze lingered on Tess, and she knew that he was silently asking her something else, something entirely different.

_Are you in or are you out?_

Tess held his gaze for a moment, her blue eyes shuttered, then said, "What happened, happened. We can't change it now." And Max too knew to read between the lines of what she had said.

_I'm out. I'll always be out of the group._

"We could change it," Max replied gently, running a hand through his hair shakily and wondering why Tess' words caused such a pang of grief.

_We want you in, Tess. If you are willing to compromise, we'll compromise too._

The others stared back and forth between the two aliens, realizing that they were discussing something important and grave, and something filled with hidden meanings that only they understood.

Tess shook her head. "No, we can't." She looked down at her hands, then past them to the desert ground. "Looking back, I can't pinpoint exactly when it happened. But I know it did. We crossed a line somewhere."

_Some things, once they happen, can't be undone, no matter how hard you try. Maybe us drifting apart wasn't entirely your fault. Maybe I do have some of the blame. But more than that, what happened, us going our separate ways…it was simply inevitable._

"You guys want to fill us in?" Maria demanded sharply.

There was a heavy silence. "It's complicated," Tess said at last. She turned away from Max and stared out into the blue sky, a contemplative look on her pretty features. Drawing a deep breath, and expelling it slowly, she continued, more to herself than to the others around her, "Family always is."

Max swallowed the regret that built up in him and nodded, understanding Tess' last comment for what it really meant.

_We are still family, and I'll always be there if you need me, but some times, in some instances, being family just isn't enough. This is one of those times. All that is left now are angry words and bittersweet memories, and _don't_ expect me to be happy about it.  
_

"It's nothing," Max said finally, turning to Maria. "Just working out some issues is all."

Alex was staring at Tess, his eyes unnaturally shrewd. He studied the tense line of her jaw, the guardedness to her eyes, the stiffness in her neck and shoulders, and said in dawning realization, "You're scared."

Tess turned towards Alex, her eyes suddenly unreadable. A loose blonde curl fell over her face, and she pushed it away slowly, her eyebrows knitting together in concentration. She hesitated for a moment, then looked away again. Her expression was filled with a million different conflicting emotions, and the others could see that whatever was going through her mind, the thoughts were complicated and troubled. But when she spoke, her answer was simplicity itself.

"Yes."

Max involuntarily sucked in a breath and exchanged a glance with Michael and Isabel. Tess did not admit to fear. Anger, frustration, rage, sadness, pain, pride, glee, delight, exhilaration… Those feelings, Tess would admit to. But not fear. _Never_ fear. She was always the one they could rely on to be calm and collected while they all panicked.

"What is it?" Max demanded, his eyes darkening with worry. "What are you afraid of?" He swallowed his own unease, praying silently that whatever Tess was scared of, it would turn out to be nothing.

"I don't know," Tess replied reluctantly. "I just…I just get a feeling that…" Her sentence drifted off as she was unable to find the words to express her unnamed fear.

"A feeling?" Maria asked, slightly disbelieving, slightly mocking. "You are afraid of a feeling?"

But Isabel knew better. If Tess felt that something was wrong… The statuesque alien impatiently flicked her hair out of her concerned eyes and asked, "Did you see something? Was it like a premonition or a vision?"

"It wasn't a vision," Tess replied. She licked her suddenly dry lips and wrapped her arms around herself, abruptly cold in the sweltering. "It's just the feeling that…" She closed her eyes and tried to think of the right words to express the sensation that had been haunting her for the past few days. She struggled in vain for a moment as the fear increased, wrapping itself around her in a tight bind.

"What is it?" Maria demanded, always impatient, always blunt.

Tess turned to Maria, her eyes somber. After a moment of hesitation, she replied in a low and quiet voice, "It's this feeling that we may have stopped one problem, but more are going to come. It isn't over. In fact, it may be about to get worse, and…" She paused, suddenly not wanting to explain, not wanting to finish her sentence. If she put words to her fear, it would make it that much stronger, that much more powerful, that much harder to bear.

"And what?" Michael asked gruffly.

Tess closed her eyes, drawing a slow breath and listening to the silence of the desert. Finally, she said in a barely audible voice, "And there is _nothing_ we can do to stop it." She paused and opened her eyes, meeting the concerned and confused gazes of the others, then admitted, "And that, more than anything else, is what terrifies me."

* * *

Pain. Unbearable pain. 

Bright white lights. Bright white room. No doors, no windows, just white. White walls, white floor, white ceiling.

People leaning over him, staring at him, talking. Saying words he didn't know, words he couldn't understand. A language he didn't know.

How long had he been here? A day? A month? A year? A decade? A century? He couldn't remember. Time turned into nothing. Couldn't see it, couldn't feel its passing. Just white. Always white.

Pain. Unbearable pain.

Strapped to a chair. Blood taken. Bones studied. Tests. Shock-therapy. Ice cold water and boiling hot air. Pictures, images in front of his eyes. Fragmented, disconnected moments played out on a screen. Colors and shapes he did not know.

Anger. Fear. Fury. Terror. Mixed emotions swimming through his veins. How dare they do this to him? How dare they keep him here?

He wanted out. He needed out. He would get out.

Pain. Unbearable pain.

It was all a blur. He couldn't remember what he had done or how it had happened. His powers suddenly exploded and there was a crash. A scream. Objects flying, people running. Flashes of light. Red blood on white walls. Fear.

But this time the fear was not his.

The restraints of the chair broke. The lights wavered, then the room was plunged into darkness. Pain coursed through him, but he pushed it aside. Bodies scattered across the floor. Lifeless, still. He stood, relishing in his victory.

A groan, and a someone jumped to his feet. Charged at him. But he turned and lifted a hand, pressing it into the person's chest. The man fell without a word.

Silence.

Nasedo blinked and looked around the white room. He was surrounded by the bodies of the scientists who had tortured him. The floor was covered in blood. And he was free.

He turned and walked from the dark room. He shoved the door opened and stepped into the hallway, his powers ready. He saw no one.

How long had he been there? He couldn't remember. He couldn't remember anything after the crash, except for a haze of fear and pain.

They would pay. They would all pay for what he did to them.

But first, he had to find the Royal Four.

The door closed shut behind him, throwing the white room into complete darkness. The only source of light came from the last man Nasedo had attacked. A tiny sliver of light, eerie and weak, emanated from his chest, where the outline of a silver handprint was beginning to form.

* * *

Next Chapter: The Devil You Know 

Due: Sunday 12/25 (Christmas!)

Author's Note: I know in the series that the silver hand print appeared when Max healed Liz as well as when Nasedo killed. In my story, I've changed it so that the hand print only appears if an alien is killing someone, and only if they press their hand directly to their chest like Nasedo did to the last agent he killed. Also, all aliens (Nasedo, the skins, the Royal Four) can cause a silver hand print to form.


	13. The Devil You Know

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's Note: Thanks to all who reviewed. Please note the time change at the beginning of the chapter (second paragraph).

* * *

Chapter Twelve: The Devil You Know

"So then," Max continued his story, "my Mom asks Michael to stay for dinner. And Michael drapes his arm over Isabel as though the two of them were dating, and now my Mom won't believe Isabel when she says she's not interested in him that way."

Liz laughed, her brown eyes shinning with tears of mirth at the thought. "Oh, God. What did Isabel do to Michael for that?" she asked, flicking a strand of dark hair out of her face and slipping into the booth next to Max. It had been two weeks since the meeting by the cliffs, and the two weeks were some of the best she could remember ever having.

Because of Max.

Maria hurried over to their table, a pen and pad in hand. "You bailed on me for a date?" she demanded incredulously, her lips compressed into a disproving line.

"Bailed?" Max questioned, glancing over at Liz.

Liz shook her head and said, "I just asked you to cover my shift tonight." She smiled apologetically and pointed out, "I offered to cover for you next time you want to do something."

Maria shook her head in annoyance, but took their orders and walked back to the kitchen to deliver them to the cook. Liz watched her best friend go, pleased that Maria was no longer freaking out around the aliens, then turned to Max and said, "You were telling me what Isabel did?"

Max grinned. "Oh, she threatened many horrible things, but ended up not doing anything. _Yet_." He smirked slightly, imagining whatever horrible payback Isabel was planning. "You know what they say…" he murmured.

"Revenge is a dish best served cold?" Liz supplied. Max stared at her in dumbfounded surprise. Liz blushed slightly under his scrutinizing gaze and asked hesitantly, "That was what you were thinking, wasn't it?"

Max swallowed and nodded. "Yes, it was," he murmured. He looked down at his hands, unsettled and confused. "It's just…normally no one ever gets what I'm thinking when I say…" he paused, frowning as he struggled to put his thoughts into words. "Michael and Isabel would never have come up with that line about revenge," he said at last. He looked up sharply and met Liz's eyes. "I guess we're on the same mental wavelength."

Liz flushed an even deeper scarlet and looked away.

The door to the Crashdown swung open, and several students entered, talking loudly and laughing. Max and Liz both looked up, quickly identifying the others. Kyle and Trudy had entered first, and taken a private booth near the back. Tess, Jessica, Cliff, and a jock that, after a moment of thought, Max decided was named either Jason or Chris, took a large table in the center of the room. Finally, Michael and Isabel drifted in through the door, nodded briefly at Max and Liz, and took their own seat near the front.

It was a Friday night, and as there was very little else to do in Roswell, most of the teenagers seemed congregate at the diner.

Liz was staring at Kyle, who was purposely avoiding making eye contact. He was looking determinedly at the menu and talking quietly to Trudy. Trudy glanced over at Liz once or twice, then looked quickly a way.

"Liz?" Max said gently, placing his hand on top of her own.

"I wish things weren't so strained between Kyle and I," she admitted. "I didn't want to hurt him like that…"

Max and Liz both glanced over at Kyle in time to see him suddenly lean forward and kiss Trudy passionately. They weren't the only ones who noticed, Cliff and Jason-or-Chris burst into sudden applause, and Jessica and Tess met each other's eyes and looked quickly away to keep from laughing. Kyle had the decency to look embarrassed for a moment, then turned and scowled at his still cheering friends. As he turned back to Trudy, his gaze lingered on Liz for a fraction of a second, and his eyes were filled with mocking anger.

Michael and Isabel noticed the exchange. Michael ignored it and focused on his food, but Isabel sent her brother a sympathetic look. Max smiled gratefully at her, but the smile faded as he looked at Liz's downcast face. His hands clenched under the table in anger and he glared at Kyle.

But Kyle wasn't looking over at them anymore, he was focusing on Trudy, who was laughing at something he said.

Liz looked down at her plate and sighed.

* * *

"Jerk," Isabel murmured under her breath, her eyes shooting daggers at Kyle. Michael caught her gaze for a moment and looked away, over at Max and Liz's table. Isabel stared down at the table, confused about the different feelings. She wanted to dislike Liz, but found that it was more and more difficult to do. Not because she liked Liz, not because she trusted the brunette human, not because she felt any sympathy for her, but because of Max. 

Because she had never seen Max as happy as he was when he was with Liz.

"Hope Maxwell doesn't do anything stupid," Michael said quietly, eyeing his friend appraisingly. The anger flashing in Max's topaz eyes was a little unsettling. The last time he had seen anything remotely similar to it was when, in eighth grade, an obnoxious jerk tried to feel up Isabel. He had unfortunately chosen a bad time to do it, and Max, seeing the entire thing, sent the boy to the hospital with a broken nose.

Isabel shrugged and looked back at Michael. "He's gotten more control over his temper since eighth grade," she assured him, although she herself was not as confident in Max's self-control as she sounded.

"Can I get you something?" Maria asked, appearing at the side of the table, her face fixed in a wide, somewhat fake, smile. In the past few days she had grown accustomed to the presence of the aliens in the diner, and was less disturbed by the newfound knowledge of extraterrestrial existence than she had been originally. Although she did not go out of her way to seek their company, she no longer felt the need to hide from the aliens either.

Isabel sent a chilling smirk at Maria, but the blonde human was not fazed in the slightest. She sent back a smile so sweet it made Michael's teeth ache, and he grimaced and looked away. Isabel scowled to herself and said, "We haven't decided yet."

"Let me know when you do," Maria replied, flouncing away.

"She's not afraid of you anymore, Izzy," Michael pointed out.

"Yeah, well… I liked it better when she was always on her toes around us," Isabel snapped.

Michael quickly turned his laugh into a cough at the sight of Isabel's glowering face, and managed to say, "Don't we all…"

"Wonder what brought about the change?" Isabel commented, following Maria with her eyes. Michael said nothing, they both knew the answer. They had seen the way Maria watched Max and Liz, they had seen the understanding slowly settle in her eyes. She had changed her mind about the aliens once she had finally figured out what Liz, Max, and probably Alex had known all along.

Max and Liz had something…something _real_.

Of course, the fact that Tess no longer plagued the three humans with her constant sharp remarks and idle threats also helped.

"I still don't like it," Michael said in an undertone, his voice suspicious. "She could be a threat to us." Isabel raised an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged uncomfortably and elaborated, "She might not purposefully turn us in, but what if she accidentally reveals something?" He met Isabel's gaze, thinking about Liz and her diary. What if Maria kept a diary as well? What if the wrong person saw it?

"I could take a peek in Maria's head," Isabel murmured quietly.

"You know what Maxwell thinks about that."

Isabel nodded slowly, contemplating the change that had come over her brother in the past few weeks. Ever since the falling out with Tess, he had seemed more confident, more in control. He had even gone so far as to explicitly order Isabel not to dream-walk any of the humans, and Isabel, to her own great shock and dismay, had found herself automatically complying with the command.

"What do you think Max and Liz are talking about?" Isabel said at last, her gaze fixed on her brother as she broke the silence that had fallen.

"Wish I knew," came Michael's taciturn reply. He watched Max lean over and whisper something to Liz, watched as Liz laughed quietly and looked away, watched as Max reached across the table and took Liz's hand in his own…

And some little part inside of Michael twisted as he saw this. The part that remembered one too many broken promises from Hank and one too many forgotten events… The part of him that never trusted anyone save Max, Isabel, and Tess… That part squirmed, wanting to shout out a warning to Max, wanting to tell him not to let anything in.

Nothing good ever came of that.

Isabel watched the conflicting emotions playing across Michael's face and knew what he was thinking. What he was remembering. Hot anger bubbled through her at the thought of Hank, anger that threatened to erupt into violent curses. She forced herself to look away and take a shaky breath. As much satisfaction as she would get from verbally abusing Michael's foster father, she knew it would do little good. Michael would revert into his shell, refusing to discuss the matter at all.

He always did.

"I'm not hungry anymore," Isabel said abruptly, reaching across the table and taking Michael's hand. "Let's get out of here."

* * *

Deputy Hannigan looked around the empty alley for a moment, his eyes adjusting to the dim light. He frowned, searching for the source of the noise he had heard just a moment before. It had been a sharp, yet soft, sound, like the crash of metal on brick, and it has most definitely been coming from the alley. 

But now everything was silent.

Hannigan dropped his hand to his gun. It was probably just some kids getting into typical teenage trouble, but still…

Better safe than sorry.

The sound came again, slightly louder this time, yet still soft enough to make the Patroller doubt what he was hearing. It was coming from the back of the diner—what was it called? The Crashdown?—and it was now repeating rapidly. The deputy paused, some sixth sense suddenly warning him that this was not just a bunch of kids. He crept slowly forward, holding his breath.

The light from the single streetlamp fell across the alley, illuminating the man standing at the back of the Crashdown. He was wearing a dark sweater with a hood that left his face partially in the shadows. His eyes were fixed on the back door of the diner as though he was trying to figure out whether or not this was actually where he wanted to be. Was this really the location of what he was looking for?

Or rather, _who_ he was looking for.

Hannigan suddenly realized that the man was making the noise with his mouth. He was hissing the strange sounds from his lips, as though it was some form of speech. And, even stranger than that, was the man's eyes. They were yellow, bright yellow, and more elongated than a normal human's eyes.

The man turned and looked over at the deputy. For one brief, infinitesimally small second, Hannigan opened his mouth to scream, but no sound ever came.

* * *

"What do you mean, Maria knows?" Amy DeLuca asked incredulously. 

Valenti shrugged apologetically as he accepted the plate of lasagna Amy handed him. "She mentioned it to me in passing once…"

"How much does she know?" Amy asked, taking a seat across from Valenti at the table and sticking her fork into her own plate of food.

"Just that we're dating," Valenti replied. "She told me that we weren't very discreet." He smiled slightly at the comment. He and Amy had gone out of their way to try and keep the relationship hidden, not wanting to put Maria, Kyle, or Tess in an awkward position until they were sure that the relationship was serious. The fact that Maria had seen right through their attempts was really quite ironic.

And annoying.

"How long ago did you have this discussion with her?" Amy demanded.

Valenti paused for a moment, thinking, then said, "About three weeks ago, I guess."

"Three weeks?" Amy echoed, raising her eyebrows. "Three weeks and you didn't tell me?"

"I thought you knew," Valenti defended himself.

Amy shook her head and took a bite of lasagna. It had turned out alright, a little bit on the cheesy side, but cooking had never really been her forte. As long as it was edible, she would eat it. It wasn't as though she was a bad cook, it was just…

Oh, who was she kidding? She couldn't cook to save her life, and apart from being over-cheesy, the lasagna also happened to be overcooked.

But Valenti, she knew, would never comment. He may be lacking in some of the other aspects of a gentleman, but he never said anything about her cooking.

Probably because he was just as lousy a cook himself.

"Do either Tess or Kyle know?" Amy asked at last.

Valenti shook his head. "Kyle I am certain doesn't know," he replied. Probably because his son was oblivious to everything that did not either revolve around football, his friends, or Trudy.

Trudy. Yet another mystery in his family's lives that he did not quite understand. Sure, Kyle had explained about Liz and Max, but he still had trouble believing it. He knew Liz pretty well, and he found it difficult to imagine that she would cheat on her boyfriend. But she had, and Kyle had broken it off with her, and Trudy had seemed to appear out of nowhere.

Just goes to show how wrong he could be about people sometimes.

"And Tess?" Amy pressed.

Valenti chewed slowly, thinking about his adopted daughter. Tess was a bit more difficult to be sure about. She had never given any sign of knowing, but she was always very perceptive. Actually, Valenti found it difficult to understand how Tess could have not picked up on his relationship with Amy, especially if it was as blatant as Maria claimed. And yet… and yet she didn't seem to know.

Maybe she had a lot of other things on her mind right now, things that would distract her from the family.

Yes, that seemed the most plausible explanation.

"I don't think she knows either," Valenti replied at last.

Amy took another bite of the overcooked lasagna and silently thanked God for small favors.

* * *

Michael and Isabel stepped out from the Crashdown and stared around the empty street. Isabel shivered slightly in the chilly night air, and Michael automatically took of his coat and handed it to her. She looked up at him in surprise, her brown eyes widening at the gesture. 

"Thanks," she murmured, pulling the coat over her shoulders.

Michael shrugged uncomfortably and said gruffly, "No problem."

The two of them began to walk away from the Crashdown. They were silent, but it was not an uncomfortable silence. It was soft and gentle, and filled with a sense of comfort. It was the kind of silence that falls when you know that, no matter what the future will bring, right now everything is okay.

But it only lasted for a moment.

As Isabel crossed the street after Michael, she turned and glanced back at the diner. A figure was emerging from the alley, and she paused, a chill running up her spine. Michael turned and frowned at her, then followed her gaze.

"It's just Deputy Hannigan," Michael pointed out, watching as the deputy turned away from them and walked in the other direction. "Just the Patroller out doing his rounds." He studied the look on Isabel's face, not liking the apprehension he saw there. What did she see, and why did it bother her so much?

Isabel nodded at Michael and turned away. She was just paranoid. It was nothing but a deputy, checking to make sure there was no underage drinking going on. She shook her head once to clear her confused thoughts and ran a hand through her long blonde hair. Then she smiled at Michael and the two continued to walk.

But the silence that fell over them now was tinged with a sense of foreboding that Isabel could not quite ignore.

At the far end of the block, Deputy Hannigan paused and glanced back at the two teenagers disappearing into the distance. He studied them intently, noting the way they walked, the way they interacted with each other, the way they carried themselves. His eyes followed them attentively, as though searching for something.

And for a very brief moment, the brown eyes flashed a bright yellow.

* * *

Next Chapter: Fears, Unfounded and Proven 

Due: Tuesday 12/27


	14. Fears, Unfounded or Proven

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's Note: This is sort of a short chapter, but I promise the next one will be longer. Also, as it was pointed out to me, Topolsky's first name on the show is Kathleen, and in my story, it is Julia. I didn't know her name at the time I was writing the story, so I made it up. For the sake of the story, whatever first name I give her, Topolsky is Topolsky.

* * *

Fears, Unfounded or Proven

"Liz?" Mrs. Parker asked, knocking on the door of her daughter's room and letting herself in. "You were out quite late last night, your father and I didn't hear you come in."

"Max and I were hanging out," Liz replied, glancing over at her mother as she hunted through her dresser, looking for the clothes she wanted to wear today. It was late in the morning on a beautiful and sunny Saturday, and she had plans to go shopping with Maria.

"Just hanging out?" Mrs. Parker asked in a would-be casual voice.

"Yeah," Liz answered shortly. Well, no, it had been much more than just "hanging out." Although the evening had been slightly ruined by the brutal and graphic flashes Liz had seen…She did not want to be forced to watch a war every time she kissed her boyfriend.

"Are you alright, Lizzie?" Mrs. Parker asked, taking a seat on her daughter's bed. "You seem upset." She watched her daughter appraisingly, noting the slightly concerned look in the teenager's eyes. "We haven't really talked in a while, you know, and I just… I just wanted you to know that you could come to me with anything."

Liz smiled at her mother and nodded. "I know, Mom. I know I can tell you anything." Except this. Except Max.

"I mean, you didn't even tell me when you broke up with Kyle." Again, Mrs. Parker's tone was casual on the surface, but her eyes were trained intently on Liz, watching for the reaction.

Liz paused, swallowing nervously, and looking back at her dresser. She finally pulled out a dark red shirt and blue jeans and tossed the clothes onto her bed. At last, she turned to face her mother fully, and said sincerely, "My breakup with Kyle was…hard. I wasn't really ready to talk about it."

"Well, you moved on pretty quickly," Mrs. Parker commented, thinking about Max. She was more than a little concerned about how rapidly Liz had switched boyfriends. Liz had never talked about this Max Evans before a couple of weeks ago. Had she even known him for more than a few days before dating him?

"So did Kyle," Liz answered, her tone slightly bitter. There was an uncomfortable silence, then Liz said, "I need to change."

"Right…" Mrs. Parker stood up and walked over to the door. "Just remember, if there is anything you need to talk about…"

"I know, Mom," Liz replied quickly, a little too quickly. "I know." She watched as her mother left the room, closing the door behind her, then turned and grabbed the shirt and jeans from the bed. As she changed, she thought back to the last set of visions she had seen. They were beautiful visions, filled with blinking stars and dancing light in a mass of inky blackness, but they always ended with the same images.

War.

She carefully adjusted the neckline of her shirt and glanced at her reflection in the mirror. Then she turned away and walked over to her desk, intent on writing a few sentences in her journal about the night before.

But her journal was not in her desk.

* * *

"I'm telling you, Max," Isabel said, pacing the room, "there was something seriously off with Deputy Hannigan."

"Have you ever felt that way around him before?" Max questioned, sitting cross-legged on his bed. He was watching as his sister paced, noting the anxiety in his face. This, coupled with Tess' statement a few weeks ago that she though something bad was going to happen… Well, it worried him.

On the other hand, he didn't want to make a mountain out of a molehill. This could simply be his sister being paranoid.

"No," Isabel admitted reluctantly. "No…all the other times I've seen him, he's felt… normal."

Max raised an eyebrow and asked, "Then where exactly does that leave us, Izzy?"

Isabel shrugged and slid to the floor, leaning back against the wall by the door to support herself. "I don't know, Max. But something is wrong. I'm telling you, something is _very_ wrong."

Max stared at his sister's drawn expression, at her pale face and exhausted eyes, and nodded slowly. "Alright," he said. "Then we had better figure out what it is that is wrong." He glanced over at the clock on his dresser, noting the time. It was quarter after eleven, which meant that both Tess and Michael would be up now, but probably still at their respective houses. "You talk to Michael, and I'll talk to Tess. We'll see if either of them knows anything."

* * *

Liz tore down the steps and pushed through the hallway into the back on the Crashdown. She shoved the door to the dining area opened and stepped through, her eyes instantly scanning for Maria or Alex. She needed to tell them that the journal was gone. She needed them to help her figure out what to do next.

As she walked purposefully into the room, however, she was arrested by the sight of Kyle walking towards the front door. The Crashdown was almost empty, Saturday morning never being a high traffic time, and it was unusual to see a jock at this time.

"Kyle?" Liz asked, pausing. "What are you doing here?"

Kyle glanced over at Liz, unsure of what to say. "I just wanted to talk…" he muttered. Liz said nothing, and an uncomfortable silence fell over the two. Finally, he shrugged and looked down at his shoes. "I missed you," he said at last.

"You appeared to be having a great time with Trudy last night," Liz snapped waspishly, her anger getting the better of her.

Kyle's eyes snapped up to her face, and he glared at her. "And you were having a great time with _Max_." He spat the name 'Max' out, as though it was mud. As though he could barely bring himself to say it.

Liz flushed scarlet and looked away. "What do you want?" she repeated, her voice less accusatory this time.

"I want to be friends again," Kyle replied honestly. "I at least want us to be able to talk civilly to each other." He ran a hand through his hair. "I came over last night to talk to you, but you were still out with Max then…I thought you'd be here now and maybe we could…"

But Liz had stopped listening. "You were overhear last night?" she demanded. "Were you in my room?"

Kyle frowned, clearly unsure why she was asking these questions, and shook his head. "No, your mother said that you were still out, so I left."

"Right…" Liz looked at Kyle appraisingly for a moment, trying to decide whether or not she believed him. Had he seen her journal? Had he looked at what she had written? Did he know the secret?

Liz sighed and shook her head. If he knew, he would have told his father by now, and Max and the others would be in custody.

"Look, I just wanted to talk, okay? Nothing big, I just…last night I realized that I missed having your friendship. You weren't just a girl that I decided to date, you were someone I actually cared about," Kyle muttered, his words drawing Liz from her reverie. "I didn't want to lose that… " He closed his eyes for a moment, then drew a breath and said, "I just need to know why? Why did you do this?"

Liz bit her lip and weighed her options. Lie to him or…or what? Telling him the truth was out of the question. "Kyle, I never meant to hurt you. I just…things happened so quickly…I just…" Just what? Liz blinked rapidly, trying to come up with a proper response.

She was saved from having to come up with an answer, however, as Kyle's cell phone began to ring. He opened it, glanced down at the number, and said abruptly, "I've got to go, Liz. I'll talk to you later, okay?" And he turned and walked away, answering the cell phone as he did so.

Liz drummed her fingers carelessly on the table and thoughtfully watched Kyle go. As the Sheriff's son pushed the door to the Crashdown open, however, Liz caught a few of his words and she felt her blood run cold.

"Yeah, I just talked to Liz…Yes, it's all taken care of…I told her exactly what you said I should…No, I don't think she suspected…Of course, I understand…"

Liz turned and hurried towards the back of the diner again, her thoughts in a whirl. Had Kyle been talking to his father? Had he been sent here to find out about Max from her? Had he been the one to take her diary?

And most importantly, did he know?

* * *

Outside on the street, Kyle felt his face flush slightly as he held the cell phone against his ear, listening to his girlfriend berated him soundly for his lack of tact or sympathy.

"What do you mean, you said exactly what I told you to? I gave you guidelines of things to say, Kyle, but you were supposed to speak from your heart. You're the one who said that you where sorry you had lost the friendship with Liz, and all I was saying was that it was fine with me if you tried to patch things up with her, and that I trusted you, but I wasn't actually trying to force you into this, or to give you notes of what to say. You have to come up with it yourself."

"I know, but I figured it would be better to say what you said because you said it so well. If I tried to say something, I'd just butcher it all," Kyle protested, trying to defend himself.

"Better to butcher the words that you actually mean than to sprout flowery phrases that someone else said. I can't believe you! Look, I think mending things with Liz is a good thing since you obviously cared about her, and we've been dating for almost three weeks now, so I trust you and I know that you have moved on and all, but you've got to admit that just repeating what I say won't help the situation because it doesn't mean as much. Honestly, Tess wasn't kidding when she said you were clueless about relationships…"

Whoever thought Trudy was a sweet and quiet girl had never seen or heard her when she was like this.

* * *

"Come on, Max, this is just Isabel being paranoid," Tess said quietly as she leaned out of her bedroom window and stared at Max. Max was pacing back and forth through the dirt below her sill, his eyes glowering angrily.

"What is it isn't, Tess?" Max snapped back. "What if she is right, and something is wrong with Hannigan?"

Tess glanced around the yard suspiciously. Her bedroom was fortunately situated at the side of the house, and a set of tall rhododendron bushes blocked Max from the neighbors view, but it concerned her to have him standing in plain sight nonetheless. "Can't you at least come in?" she said angrily.

Max rolled his eyes at Tess. Her bedroom was the only one on this side of the house, and her window was the only one that opened into the yard. No one would see him here, and he was probably a lot safer out in the yard then in her room, since Kyle and Valenti could walk in any moment.

Ignoring Tess' request, Max asked, "How have you been? I haven't seen you in a while."

"You see me every day at school," Tess shot back bitingly.

"I haven't spoken to you in a while," Max amended.

"I saw you and Liz last night," Tess remarked, changing the subject and not answering Max's question, unwilling to admit that she had missed the other aliens in the past few weeks. "You looked pretty cozy," she continued, giving Max a wicked smirk.

Max glared at her and replied, "What of it?"

"Has Liz discovered anything else about our home planet yet?" Tess asked.

Max shook his head. "Nothing," he replied grimly. "At least, nothing that we didn't figure out at the first flash."

"War?" Tess sighed and turned away, glancing back at her bedroom door. "Figures we wouldn't get anymore answers," she grumbled, disappointed. She shot a look at Max over her shoulder as she stepped away from the window. "I've got to go, Max. Don't sweat it. This is just Isabel being…well, Isabel."

"Let me know if Valenti says anything about Hannigan," Max ordered, watching Tess walk away. He paused, then an idea occurred to him and he said, "See if you can lead the conversation that way. Mention that you saw Hannigan patrolling last night and he was acting funny… You know, get Valenti to talk."

Tess nodded curtly, unnerved that she was automatically accepting Max's order. He really was becoming a leader…how much longer until she wasn't needed anymore?

* * *

The landlord eyed the woman in front of him somewhat suspiciously. She was dressed in a perfectly pressed back suit jacket and skirt, and a red silk blouse. Her hair was swept out of her face into a loose bun, a few tendrils falling at the nape of her neck. It have her a no-nonsense look, but one that was slightly coupled with feminine charm.

"You want to rent this place for how long?" the landlord asked. He was an older man, balding and short, with failing eyesight, and partially deaf in one ear. The year had been slow for him, not many people still looking to rent an apartment. He would gladly take whatever this woman offered him, but still… It just seemed so off that a woman who was clearly quite well-to-do would want to rent an apartment in this part of town.

"Indefinitely," the woman replied smoothly, smiling a little too brightly at the landlord.

The landlord glanced down at the name on the renter's form in his hand and nodded. "Aright, Ms…Topolsky. How would you like to pay? Cash or check?"

"Check," Ms. Topolsky replied crisply, reaching into her purse and pulling out her checkbook.

* * *

Next Chapter: Circling 

Due: Tuesday 1/2 (2006!)


	15. Circling

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: This chapter takes place directly where the last one left off. So no time has passed since the point when Liz realized her journal was missing.

* * *

Chapter Fourteen: Circling

Liz paced back and forth across the floor of her room, her face scrunched in worry and confusion as she tried to think over everything that had happened.

Her journal was missing. And from the conversation she had overheard Kyle having, she was fairly certain that he had it.

So how much did he already know?

"What's going on?" Maria asked as she shoved the door to Liz's room open and stepped inside. Liz spun around at the sudden entrance of her friend, her features still filled with fear. "You sounded panicked on the phone," Maria remarked, flopping down onto Liz's bed and eyeing Liz warily.

"My journal's gone," Liz said quickly. There was really no point beating around the bush, she had to act quickly to protect Max's secret.

"What was in it?" Maria demanded instantly, concerned.

"Everything," Liz whispered, looking away. How could she have been stupid enough to write everything down and then leave it unguarded? If anything happened to the four aliens, she would never forgive herself.

Maria frowned at her friend, unnerved. Only a few weeks ago she herself had been willing to turn these people in, but now she had finally realized that they were just teenagers. Just teenagers who were a bit less normal than everyone else. And it scared her to no end to think about what could happen to them.

She still passionately disliked Tess. And neither Isabel nor Michael were incredibly high up on her list of people to care about. Even Max, despite the fact that he always tried to be nice to her, and that Liz was so clearly and completely infatuated with him…even Max she was not incredibly fond of.

But she would not let them be killed.

"What do we do?" Maria asked quietly.

* * *

Isabel parked her car outside of the house and got out, looking around. She had never been to this particular house before. She shifted from one foot to the other, nervous about what she was about to do, but knowing she had no other choice. 

She didn't care what Tess said, she didn't care if Max took the petite alien's words over her own, she did not care if Michael's opinion was swayed by the other two.

There had been something very off with Deputy Hannigan last night, and she was going to figure out what it was.

Isabel walked up the path to the front door and knocked sharply, then waited silently, listening to the sounds issuing from behind the door. She closed her eyes for a moment, her breath hitched slightly in her throat.

She had spent her whole life floating just below the radar. Excelling enough in school to make the honor's list but not enough to be called a nerd, having a wide enough circle of friends not to be called an outcast but not being popular enough to be gossiped about, paying enough attention to her looks to be considered beautiful and stylish but not too model-like. Her whole life all she had ever wanted was to fit in, to be normal, to be accepted.

But some sixth sense was telling her that her days of normal were over.

The door opened, and a completely surprised Alex stared at her. "Isabel?" he managed at last. "What are you doing here?"

Isabel swallowed. "I need your help," she answered quietly, biting her bottom lip. As always, being around Alex put her on edge. She had never had a crush like this before. It wasn't even really a crush, it was just sort of a feeling that she couldn't explain. She didn't like him in 'that way,' and he clearly did not have feelings for her, but at the same time she also didn't…

She just didn't know.

Things were so damn complicated for her right now, and being around Alex just made that so much more obvious to her.

"What sort of help?" Alex asked.

"There's something wrong with Deputy Hannigan," Isabel explained. "Something off about him." She stepped past Alex and into the entrance hall to his house. "I can't explain it, but I just know that something isn't right."

"Huh?" Alex asked, running a hand through his messed up hair and frowning.

"You're good with computers," Isabel said as Alex closed the door behind her. "I thought maybe you could…you know, find something out about him?" She held her breath. Most conversations they had had in the past couple weeks had been short and sharp, and she had ended up brushing him off. Would he help her now?

"Isn't that something Tess would do better?" Alex asked quietly. "She lives with the Sheriff." Although he had little understanding of how the dynamics of the four aliens worked, he did know that most things having to do with the Sheriff were left to Tess.

Isabel pursed her lips in annoyance. "Tess thinks I'm being paranoid."

Alex slanted a look at Isabel, his expression unreadable. There was a long silence, then Alex said, "I don't know how much I can get for you. The city will have a listing of the official information of all cities employees, including Hannigan, on their website, but other information…" Alex shrugged apologetically.

"Anything you can get me would be appreciated," Isabel replied honestly, her eyes shinning with happiness.

"I can dig around a bit," Alex said at last. "I might be able to find some of the less accessible stuff." He shrugged again, then continued, "What exactly am I looking for?"

"That the problem," Isabel replied heavily, taking a slow breath. "I don't know."

* * *

Liz knocked anxiously at the door to the Evans' house and glanced around her apprehensively. A moment later it was opened by Mrs. Evans, who smiled kindly at Liz and looked her up and down. 

"Come on in," Mrs. Evans said cheerfully, waving Liz into the house. She followed the brunette with her eyes, taking in her appearance. She had never really talked to Liz before, because neither Isabel nor Max had ever been friends with the girl. And it had surprised her to no end to hear, through the grape vine, that her son was dating Liz.

It had surprised her even more to learn that Liz's parents hadn't known either.

Honestly, did the kids think that they would never find out? Contrary to popular belief, parents were not completely oblivious to the lives their children lead. All parents had a social network that allowed them to keep fairly close tabs on their children's activities, and the Evans were no exception.

But unlike most parents, Mrs. Evans preferred to close her eyes to what was happening. She knew, had known for a while, that there was something a little…well, not normal…with Max and Isabel. Special, she liked to call it. She didn't know what it was, and didn't really care. They were her kids, and they would tell her when they were ready.

Until then, she would wait. She wasn't blind, she just chose not to see.

"Max is in his room," Mrs. Evans directed Liz.

Liz smiled and muttered a brief thank you before hurrying to see Max. She knocked on his door and, he opened it a moment later, looking very surprised to see her there.

"Come in," Max said, echoing his mother. He watched as Liz practically fled into his room, and his countenance darkened slightly. "Is everything alright?" he asked worriedly, taking a seat on his bed.

Liz sat down across from him and took a slow breath. "Max, my journal's missing. I searched my entire room, and it isn't there."

Max raised an eyebrow, confused. Granted, having a journal stolen was disquieting, but why was she so upset? What could possible be in it that would… And then he suddenly remembered how Alex had found out about the aliens.

He had read Liz's journal.

Which meant…

"Liz, what was in the journal?"

Liz bit back the urge to burst into tears and replied, "Everything, Max. Everything was in it."

Max paled rapidly, then stood abruptly and began to pace, angry and worried. "How could you write everything down and then just leave your journal lying about?" he demanded, much more harshly than he intended.

"I didn't leave it lying out," Liz protested, knowing it was a weak defense. "It was in a drawer."

Max nodded and closed his eyes, trying to control his rapidly fraying nerves. "Any idea who has it?"

Liz nodded worriedly and recounted the conversation she had had with Kyle. "And then, at the end of it, his cell rang, and when he answered it he told the person at the end of line that he had said what he was supposed to and he didn't think I knew…" Liz looked down at her hands, and murmured, "Max, what if that other person was Valenti?"

"The Sheriff?" Max asked, considering the question with growing horror. He ran a hand through his hair and drew a long breath. "Maybe…" He stared at Liz for a moment, then asked, "Who else knows it is missing?"

"Maria," Liz answered instantly. "She helped me search my whole room for it, and now she is looking around the Crashdown, just to be on the safe side…" She let the sentence drift off, knowing that Maria would not find the journal there. She was never careless enough to leave her personal belongings, least of all a journal, in the diner.

"We need to talk to Kyle," Max said at last, after pondering his options. "Maybe is he's got it, he hasn't shown it to his father yet." He knew he was clutching at straws, but it didn't matter. He had to believe that this would all work out, because if it didn't…

* * *

"Sheriff?" One of the deputies stuck his head into Valenti's office, his face drawn and worried. "We've got a problem, Sheriff." 

"Can't it wait, Williams?" Valenti barked, gesturing to the piles of paperwork on his desk.

Deputy Williams frowned and bit his lower lip. He was a young deputy, just out of college, and still a little shy around the boss and his older colleagues. And while he didn't want to upset the Sheriff, he knew that the problem had to be addressed immediately.

"No, sir," Williams said, "it's can't." Valenti gave him a sharp look, one eyebrow raised, and Williams flushed a deep crimson. "It's just…we found a body, sir," he continued, flustered. "Might be a homicide."

"What? Where? Did you ID the body?" Valenti asked, standing up quickly, his paperwork forgotten. He walked quickly over to the door and pushed Williams out into the hallway, then followed himself. To his surprise, the staff of the entire sheriff's office had congregated in the small outer room.

"It was in the alley behind the Crashdown diner, sir," Williams said quickly, his eyes oddly bright. "Sir…the victim…" He stopped, unable to continue, to say the words. Finally, after a moment of silence, he said in a rush, "It was Deputy Hannigan, sir."

"Wh-what?" Valenti stumbled over the word, scarcely believing his ears.

"There didn't appear to be any wounds on him, sir, but he was dead alright," another deputy spoke up. "Don't know what killed him."

"Could it have been a heart attack?" one of the secretaries asked politely, her voice oddly muffled and thick with grief.

"Autopsy will tell," Valenti murmured. He looked over at Williams. "You said it might have been a homicide. What makes you think that?"

"Well, his keys and car are missing, sir," Williams explained. "And his badge and radio too. Plus, it looked as if he had been moved. He was dragged out of sight behind some dumpsters." He shrugged apologetically, not having any more than that to offer.

"Bring me the autopsy report when it is in," Valenti said determinedly. He glanced around at everyone else in the office. "If Hannigan's death was homicide, then our number one priority is to find out who is behind it. I want all his movements from that night traced. I want to know where he was, why he was there, and for how long. A detailed report of the scene of his death and anything else that comes up. Talk to his family…" Valenti frowned as a thought suddenly occurred to him. "Has his wife been notified?"

"Yes, sir," a deputy murmured. "We just sent Deputy Rogers over to talk to her. Figured you'd visit her when we know more."

"Right," Valenti nodded slowly, thinking. He looked silently around at the others for a moment, then reiterated, "Everything ends up on my desk, alright? This is our number one priority."

Nobody killed one of his deputies and got away with it.

* * *

Kyle stared in confusion at Liz and Max, rubbing his eyes and trying to understand why exactly they were in his living room and what it was they were asking him. "I already told Liz that I wasn't in her room," he grumbled. "I _don't_ understand what this is about." 

"My journal is missing," Liz replied. "I'm trying to find it and I thought that perhaps you had seen it?" She stared at Kyle intently, watching his eyes. People's eyes always betrayed them, if he was lying, she would see it there…

"Why would I have seen it?" Kyle asked, and there was truth in his eyes.

Liz frowned and glanced over at Max, silently asking him what they should do next. Max met her gaze for a moment, then turned to Kyle and said, "Alright, we believe you." He reached out and took Liz's hand. "We're sorry to bother you with this, but after the stunt your friends pulled…" his gaze hardened dramatically, "well, we weren't sure how far you would go to get even."

Kyle frowned slightly, uncomprehendingly, until he knew what it was Max had been referring to, and his face flushed deeply. "I had nothing to do with that," he defended himself. "I didn't ask my friends to beat you up." He turned angry eyes to Liz and continued, "Besides, I already told you I wanted to be friends again."

Liz nodded in acknowledgement of the truth in his words, but couldn't help asking, "And that wasn't a set up." At Kyle's blank look, she elaborated, "I heard you on the phone afterwards. You need to learn to speak more quietly."

Kyle paled and looked away. "You heard?" he murmured. He hesitated, seemingly trying to figure out what to say, then explained, "It wasn't what you think."

Max stiffened slightly at those words. Was this a confession?

"Then what was it?" Liz pressed, sensing that she was getting somewhere.

The phone rang once, and Kyle turned to answer it, but the ringing stopped. He frowned slightly, his eyebrows knit together, then said more to himself than the other two, "Tess must have answered it."

"You were telling Liz what it was she heard…" Max prompted, searching Kyle's expression for some sign that he knew the truth about the aliens.

"Look, I just thought…I wanted to come, Liz. I just thought I'd mess everything up if I tried to say it on my own, and she…" Kyle broke off, now having no idea what to say. How could he explain this to her properly. He wanted to patch things up with her, he _really_ did, but he just didn't know how.

She wasn't just some girl he had been dating. She was special, she mattered to him. He had risked his image at school and his social status, not to mention having to endure taunts from his friends and, more frequently, from Tess, so that he could be with her. Because he _cared_.

And she had thrown that all in his face.

He might want to be friends with her, but he still felt like he deserved an explanation.

"As long as we are defending our actions, Liz, you could try explaining why you started dating Max while you were still going out with me," Kyle snapped. He was angry now, and although he knew he would regret his words later, he couldn't help it. He had to say them, he had to finally say everything that he had kept bottled up before. "Why, Liz? Why did you do that? I thought you were better than that. I cared about you, and you go and…"

"I didn't!" Liz protested.

"Oh, really?" Kyle replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Because that is exactly what the entire school thinks, not to mention that that is what Maria told my father!"

Liz blinked, then remembered that Maria had used that story as a way to lie to Valenti about what had happened.

"So you decided to get revenge on her?" Max snapped, watching the anger and frustration flashing through Kyle's face. "She hurt you and you wanted to get even?"

"Can you blame me if I did?" Kyle hissed, and then knew instantly that it was the wrong thing to say. Liz flinched at the harsh words, tears pooling in her eyes, and Max clenched his hands into fists. "I didn't mean that…" Kyle muttered, looking away as he felt his anger drain. "Look, Liz, I wanted to patch things up with you. I came over to the diner to do just that!"

"And decided to take my journal in the process?" Liz asked, completely confused.

And Kyle was apparently confused as well. "I didn't touch your journal!"

"Then why were you telling your father that you had done what he instructed?" Liz asked, her lips compressing into a thin line as she glared at her ex-boyfriend.

"My father…?" Kyle suddenly laughed, but his laugh was harsh, and filled with anger. "I was on the phone with _Trudy_, Liz. I told her that I wanted to be friends with you again, and she gave me some advice on what to say. I was worried that I would screw everything up if I tried to say my own stuff, so I just repeated what she told me. So when she called, I told her that I had done everything she had said I should, and that I didn't think you suspected that they weren't my words."

"Oh," Liz said quietly, feeling foolish. She felt Max tightened his grip around her hand an knew that he was feeling ridiculous as well. "Well…sorry."

"Sorry?" Kyle mimicked. "You wrongly accuse me a theft and all you have to say is _sorry_?" He shook his head and looked away from Liz and over at the hallway. Max and Liz followed his gaze and found, to their surprise, that Tess was standing there, the phone held loosely in one hand. Her face was completely blank, which both Kyle and Max instantly knew was a very bad sign.

It meant she was livid.

"Am I interrupting?" she asked, her blue eyes travelling back and forth between Kyle, Liz, and Max.

"No," Kyle replied angrily, turning and scowling at Liz again. He finally tore his gaze away from her and glanced back over at Tess. "What's up?"

"Cliff is one the phone," Tess replied, holding it out. "Wants to talk to you about football practice or something." She watched with narrowed eyes as Kyle took the phone, shot one last vengeful glare at Liz, and stomped from the room. Then she said in an icy voice, "What's going on?"

"Nothing, Tess."

"So you were interrogating my brother for the fun of it?" Tess practically snarled.

Max winced and said nothing, knowing whatever answer he gave would be wrong.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Tess continued, her anger building steadily as she fought to keep her voice quiet. "How dare you accuse Kyle? And even if he had stolen it, why would you out rightly accuse him? Hell, if you thought there was any chance that he knew the truth, why would even show up here? Why wouldn't you just call me and have me handle it?"

"Because you wanted us to handle things on our own?" Max retorted, flushing as he realized that Tess had a point. Granted she was over reacting to this entire thing, but she did have a point.

"Not this," Tess spat. "Not when it is something I can do better than you."

"Well forgive me for not reading your mind!" Max growled. "But when you don't clearly express what you want us to do, don't be surprised that we don't understand. You are the only one here who has the power to look into people's minds. And even you can't read them!"

"Shut up!" Tess hissed, keeping her voice low and sending an apprehensive glance back at Kyle's room. She turned and trained her gaze on Liz. "And you! Didn't having Alex read your journal teach you anything?"

"Leave her out of this," Max ordered authoritatively.

"Make me," came Tess' arrogant reply. There was a silence while the two just glared at each other, then Tess said in a voice of forced calm, "Get out, Max. Just get out."

* * *

Michael glanced around the Crashdown, annoyed that Liz was not there. The diner was crowded, only a few booths were still empty, but Michael could see quite clearly that the brunette waitress was nowhere in sight. He bit his lip and weighed his options, then decided to come back later. Before he could leave, however, Maria caught sight of him and made her way over. 

"Hey," she drawled. "Funny seeing you without Max or Isabel."

"I'm leaving," Michael replied shortly, glowering slightly at Maria.

The blonde waitress frowned and glanced around, lowering her voice. "Liz's journal's missing."

"Oh?" One eyebrow raised slightly.

Maria nodded. "Have you seen it?" She licked her dry lips and thought over the irony of the situation. Normally she would never seek out a conversation with Michael, but they needed to find that journal, and fast.

"Maybe she misplaced it," Michael replied in a tone of complete boredom. "Why do I care about this anyway?"

Maria rolled her eyes at Michael and said in a patient tone, "She wrote about you guys in it." She clicked her tongue impatiently, waiting for Michael to understand what she was implying.

"What about us?" Michael asked, yawning.

Maria narrowed her eyes. "About where you're really from," she said in a low tone. Honestly, how dense was he?

Michael winced. "Whell that was stupid of her," he said bluntly, a little bit of concern appearing briefly in his eyes.

"Don't insult Liz," Maria scowled angrily. "She had been running around like crazy trying to find it, terrified of what will happen if it falls into the wrong hands. She's trying to fix this."

"Really?" Michael asked, and there was something in his eyes that made Maria pause.

Finally, Maria nodded and opened her mouth to say something, but was surprised when Michael suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her through the diner and into the back room. He glanced around to make sure that they were not being watched, then said, "She just misplaced the journal, Maria. It will turn up. There is nothing to worry about."

"What?" Maria demanded. "How do you know that?"

"I just do," Michael replied. He opened his coat and pulled a leather bound journal from his inside pocket, and placed it on the counter top. "She just _misplaced_ it."

Maria stared at the journal, then up at Kyle, then back at the journal. "You took it?" she hissed, angry on behalf of her best friend. "You _read_ her journal? What is wrong with you? Don't they have any sense of privacy on whatever planet you are from?"

"Don't say that out loud. What if the wrong people here you?" Michael snapped back, glancing around, paranoid about being overheard. He hesitated then said, "I didn't read it."

"Then why did you take it?" Maria retorted, unable to believe Michael.

"To see what she would do," Michael replied. He hesitated, then said, "I wanted to see if she would…would tell us. I just…" He narrowed his eyes, mentally berating himself for feeling the need to explain his actions. What did he care what Maria thought of him?

"Well?" Maria snapped, a little bit more harshly than she had meant to sound.

"I wanted to make sure she was still on our side, okay?" Michael snarled. He paused for a moment, then finished, "And she is."

At that moment, Liz and Max walked in through the backdoor, each depressed and downhearted. The conversation with Kyle and the resulting argument with Tess had left them stressed and frustrated.

But the moment Liz's eyes landed on the journal resting on the counter top, her face lit up happily. She turned incredulously to Maria. "Where was it?" she asked, hurrying forward and snatching the journal and flipping through the pages.

Maria stared at Michael for a moment, holding his gaze, then turned to Liz. Not knowing why she was saying this, not knowing why she was lying to her best friend, she replied warily, "I found it back here. I guess you just left it out."

Liz frowned slightly, unsure about Maria's explanation. She never just left her journal lying around. No, something was a little off about that… But she had her journal back, and presumably unread. That was what really mattered.

"What are you doing here?" Max asked Michael after giving Liz a smile of relief.

"I came looking for you," Michael replied, his gaze lingering on Maria for a moment longer before turning to Max and lying through his teeth. "Did Izzy find anything more about Hannigan?"

Max shrugged as he lead the other three out into the main room of the diner. "Haven't talked to her at all today, but I'll let you know if she finds anything. Hopefully it was all her imagination."

"Yeah…"

"Still, at least we have the journal back," Max pointed out, somewhat more cheered up by that thought.

"Now I just have to see if Kyle will ever speak to me again," Liz muttered despairingly.

"And Tess," Max added, although he was less worried about that one than Liz was about Kyle.

Michael nodded absently, not really caring enough to ask why Kyle and Tess would be mad at Liz and Max. His gaze was fixed on Maria, and she looked up at him, meeting his eyes with her own soft stare, the slightest hint of a smile playing around the corners of her lips.

Then she turned and walked away, pulling out a pad of paper and a pen, and searching out the next customer with an order.

* * *

Valenti pushed open the door to his house and took a seat, exhausted. Another late night, another weekend spent almost entirely away from home. 

Kyle was sitting on the sofa, eating spaghetti and watching a football game on the television. Tess was sitting at the table, painting her nails. There were two untouched plates next to her, one with just regular spaghetti and cheese, and the other with spaghetti, cheese, meat sauce, and Tabasco sauce.

And Valenti was reminded, once again, of how strange Tess' tastes were.

"Your home late," Tess remarked, waving one hand to dry the polish. She inspected her nails carefully, eyeing them critically and searching for any imperfections. Then she got up and picked up a plate of pasta, turning to Valenti and staring at him questioningly.

Valenti dropped his coat and briefcase by the door and yawned. "Lot of work," he explained.

"Long day, huh?" Kyle said casually.

"Rough day," Valenti replied quietly, taking a seat on the sofa. He gratefully accepted the plate of pasta that Tess handed him and looked thoughtfully out the living room window. "One of my deputies died last night. Might have been a homicide."

"Oh, Dad, I'm sorry," Kyle said instantly, knowing how hard it must be for his father. Valenti was not an emotional man, he rarely showed any outright affection for anyone, but Kyle knew how much he valued the people at his office.

"Who was it?" Tess asked casually, although her heart was beating wildly and her eyes were filled with worry and concern. She was fairly certain that she already knew the answer, but she had to hear it from his lips before she would believe.

"Hannigan," Valenti muttered.

Tess sucked in a sharp breath that went unnoticed by the others in the room.

It looked as though Isabel may have been right.

* * *

Next Chapter: Julia Topolsky 

Due: Friday 1/6


	16. Julia Topolski

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's Note: Due to privacy issues, police are not allowed to realise the name of a homicide victim until the family has given permission. Hannigan's wife has not given permision yet, and neither Kyle nor Tess has told anyone. So for all anyone knows, he is still alive and well. Also, this chapter has several interviews between Topolski and students in it. A lot of the inspiration and material for these interviews comes directly from the first season of Roswell. You may notice that I did not write the interviews with Maria or Kyle, or for any of the other non-main characters. These interviews did happen, but nothing important came up in them (i.e. Topolski does not suspect those students of anything) so I didn't include them.

Please read and review.

* * *

Chapter Fifteen: Julia Topolski

"I hate Mondays," Maria mumbled as she followed Liz and Alex through the halls of their school. She tucked a strand of hair behind one ear and rubbed her tired eyes, trying to conceal a yawn.

"Who do you think this Julia Topolski woman is?" Alex asked, staring at the piece of paper in his hand. Everyone in his homeroom had been given these slips and told to report to Ms. Topolski's office at the time indicated.

"She's the new guidance counselor," Liz replied instantly. "I think she's also standing in as the philosophy teacher until Ms. White gets back from maternity leave." She glanced down at her own slip of paper. "I've got a meeting with her at 1:15. When do you guys see her?"

"Right now," Alex said dully. "10:30."

"11:30, right before lunch" Maria replied, yawning again. "What do we talk to a guidance counselor about?"

"Future plans, I expect," Alex answered. He glanced from Maria to Liz and then back again. "She's going to have a lot of fun with that philosophy class," he remarked dryly.

Philosophy was an easy class, mostly taken by students who needed an English elective, but didn't actually want to take a difficult class. It was full of stoners and jocks and, incidentally, Tess and her clique.

"Yeah, I don't know why anyone would want to teach that class," Maria laughed. "It's like the worst aspects of this school all combined." She ran a hand through her short hair. "Nobody in that class has a future for Topolski to worry about."

"Kyle and Trudy are in that class," Liz countered. "And Tess." She frowned for a moment, thinking, then said, "And I think that Michael might be also…if he actually ever shows up."

"Did you know that Michael has actually passed all of his classes?" Liz said in a low whisper, glancing around the hallway to make sure they weren't overheard. "He doesn't ever show up, and he doesn't fail."

"Now that's a trick I should learn," Maria commented admiringly.

"How does he pull that one off?" Alex asked, slightly intrigued. "And how do you know all this anyway?"

"Max told me when we where studying yesterday," Liz explained. "I asked him if he wanted to study with Isabel and Michael instead of me because we had been spending so much time together, and he said Michael didn't study, so I said that maybe he should study to pass his classes and Max said that Michael did pass all his classes and…"

"Lizzie, you're rambling," Maria said gently, smiling at her friend. "Happens a lot when you're talking about Max, doesn't it…?" she asked slyly, slanting a look at Liz.

Liz stopped instantly and flushed crimson. There was a momentary pause, then she switched subjects and said, "I still can't believe that I was stupid enough to leave my journal in the diner. What if the wrong person had read it? Can you imagine?"

Maria carefully avoiding meeting Liz's eyes, knowing her best friend would see right through her lies, as she replied, "Lucky no one did read it."

The three friends paused outside of Ms. Topolski's office. Liz shrugged at Maria and said, "Well, I do have to repair my friendship with Kyle…if it is even still possible," while Alex detached himself from the others and slipped into the counselor's room.

* * *

"I don't get the whole point of this," Isabel complained as she leaned against the locker next to Michael and her brother. "Why would I talk to a complete stranger about my hopes and dreams?" 

"Because if you don't, she'll say you're 'problematic,' and things go downhill from there," Max answered. He slammed his locker door shut and looked at the slip of paper in his hand. He didn't want to meet with this new counselor anymore than Isabel did, but his appointment was in half and hour, and he couldn't think of a way of getting out of it before then.

"I'm not going," Michael announced in a tone that brooked no argument.

"You have to go," Isabel admonished. She flicked her hair over one shoulder and gave Michael a dazzling smile. "If I have to go, you have to go." Then she turned and asked Max, "Did you talk to Tess again?"

"You mean after she kicked Liz and I out of her house?" Max asked. He shook his head and replied, "I'm not going near her with a fifty foot pole. Not until she calms down some."

"Well accusing Kyle of stealing the journal might not have been the smartest idea," Isabel spat, her eyes flashing. She had heard the entire story from an irate Max last night, and, although she thought that Tess had completely overreacted to the situation, she was annoyed at Max because they were not on speaking terms with the petite blonde. "Now we can't even ask Tess to look into this whole Hannigan deal."

"I told you, Izzy, I already asked her and she said the same thing I said. You're being paranoid," Max retorted, defending himself. "Anyway, she refused to help then, I don't think her answer would have changed, even if we hadn't gotten into an argument."

"I'm not paranoid," Isabel replied angrily. "I went over to talk to Alex about it yesterday, and he said…"

"You talked to Alex?" Michael asked sharply, his eyes narrowing. Even after almost an entire month of them knowing, and nothing going wrong yet, he was still unused to the idea that there were other people Max, Isabel, and Tess could go to for help.

"Down, Fido," Isabel snapped, rolling her eyes. "I wanted him to look into Hannigan for me. Just to see if there was anything unusual."

"And was there?" Max pressed.

Isabel drew a breath. "Well…not exactly," she admitted reluctantly, "but Alex did have a suggestion…"

"_There's nothing strange here," Alex frowned at the computer screen. "Everything checks out. Born in Seattle, attended the University of Oregon, moved to Roswell when he was in his early thirties, got married and had one kid." He turned and looked over at Isabel, who was anxiously pacing the floor behind him._

"_There has to be something," she snapped. "I _know_ there is!"_

"_Well, there is one other possibility," Alex said slowly, knowing his words were going to sound crazy, but feeling the need to say them all the same._

"_What's that?" Isabel snapped, frustrated. _

"_Maybe the guy you saw wasn't Hannigan," Alex suggested._

"_I know what I saw," Isabel retorted heatedly. "I saw Hannigan."_

"_You saw someone that looked like Hannigan," Alex corrected. He held Isabel's gaze for a beat, then shrugged and turned away from the statuesque alien. "And you said that you've never gotten this feeling when you've seen Hannigan before this time. So what if the person you saw wasn't Hannigan?"_

"_What do you mean?" Isabel demanded. "How is that possible?"_

"_I don't know," Alex replied. "But…is it so hard to imagine? With everything you've seen, everything you've done…?"_

_Isabel nodded slowly, comprehension dawning. "But that means that…" She followed Alex's train of thought to the logical conclusion, and the realization took her breath away. _

_There was another alien in town._

"That's crazy," Max said firmly the moment Isabel had finished talking. But his eyes betrayed his doubt.

Michael and Max exchanged a brief glance, than Michael shrugged and said somewhat hesitantly, as though he did not quite believe his own words, "I'm with Max. We're the only ones here. You're just being…"

"I swear if you tell me I'm paranoid one more time…" Isabel snarled, glaring at the two boys. She left the threat hanging, but there was no doubt in either Max's or Michael's minds that it was not an empty threat, so they lapsed into immediate silence.

Then Isabel turned on her heel and stalked away from them, her brown eyes flashing.

* * *

"Take a seat, Mr. Whitman," Ms. Topolski said politely, gesturing to a chair in front of her desk. Her tone was crisp, formal, but friendly all the same. She leaned back in her seat and eyed the boy in front of her. "As you know, I am new here, and I thought it would be a good idea if I got to know you all. So I've got a few questions for you." 

"I expected as much," Alex answered, making himself comfortable in the chair.

"Let's start with your dreams, shall we?" Ms. Topolski asked, smiling a little too brightly. "What do you want to do once you graduate? Do you have a dream job?"

"That's an interesting question," Alex said thoughtfully, nodding. "Do you always ask that one first?"

Ms. Topolski laughed softly and said, "I believe I am the one asking the questions, Mr. Whitman." She smiled, the skin crinkling around her eyes. "But no, I don't always ask that question first."

"It is interesting that you focus on dreams before realities, you know," Alex mused. After a moment of silent reflection, he said, "I don't have any definite plans besides college, although I do want to get a degree in computer engineering."

"Really? And do you think you will attain that dream?"

"Interesting follow-up question. However, phrased like that, you make it sound as though you don't think that I will be able to reach my dreams. You should word it more positively.," Alex explained. "Half the battle is in how you think about what you are doing."

Ms. Topolski's eyebrows shot into the air at that comment and she asked, "Have you ever considered a degree in psychology?"

"Psychology?" Alex was taken aback by the suggestion, having never considered it before. "Interesting. How exactly did you reach that conclusion? What were the steps in your thought process?"

Ms. Topolski looked down at the pad of paper in front of her. Casually concealing it from Alex's few, she wrote down a few quick lines.

_A. Whitman. Asking questions. Possibly just his personality, possibly something made him start questioning more. Connection?

* * *

_

"Max Evans, please, take a seat."

Max took a seat in front of Ms. Topolski's desk and rested his hands on the arms of the chairs, waiting politely, but with an air of suspicion, for Ms. Topolski to begin.

"I'm Julia Topolski," Ms. Topolski introduced herself. "I'm your new guidance counselor. I wanted to get to know everybody here. If you have no objections, I was going to ask you a few questions. Just to see what type of person you are."

"Go ahead," Max replied.

Ms. Topolski took out a picture of several kids playing at a playground. "Now, this is going to seem very bizarre to you, but I want you to tell me which child in this picture best represents who you are at this moment in time."

"The kid behind the tree," Max answered without even looking at the picture. There was a beat of silence while Ms. Topolski eyed Max appraisingly, then Max said hesitantly, "I was joking."

"The tree is a common place to hide," Ms. Topolski said gently. "I've been there. We all have. It's nice. Comfortable. Safe." She put the picture down on the desk. "But you need to step out into the real world, Mr. Evans. It's hard, but it is worth it."

"I was kidding," Max repeated, briefly sounding petulant.

Ms. Topolski smiled and shook her head. "Of course," she agreed in a tone which made it quite clear she did not believe him. She was silent for a moment, thinking.

Hiding behind the tree…

What was it that forced Max Evans behind that tree?

What was it that he had to hide?

* * *

"Just for the record, I don't have anything to talk about," Isabel announced as she took a seat in the chair. Ms. Topolski stared at her, neither questioning nor refuting the statement, and Isabel felt the need to explain, "I know exactly where I am going with my life?" 

"And where is that, Ms…" glancing at the file on the desk, "Evans?"

"I'm going to be a fashion designer in Los Angeles," Isabel replied quickly. "As soon as possible I'm going to get out of this God forsaken town."

"Eager to leave?" Ms. Topolski asked. "I would say your brother is just the opposite…" She watched Isabel out of the corner of her eye as she took a seat behind the desk. "Seems to like it here quite a bit."

"Max?" Isabel shrugged. "What if he does? I'm not him."

"Of course not," Ms. Topolski quickly assured the irate girl. "I would never suggest that you are."

"People ask it a lot, though," Isabel continued angrily. "Why I'm not him. Why he isn't me." She shrugged. "Being the same age doesn't make us identical, you know. Especially since we were both adopted."

Ms. Topolski nodded quietly. "It would seem to me, Ms. Evans, that you have quite a lot to talk about after all…"

Isabel, realizing her mistake, shrugged uncomfortably. "No. I don't."

Ms. Topolski pulled out a pad of paper, quickly jotting a note down on it.

_I. Evans. Indecisive, unsure. Wants to talk, to trust, but can't. Wants her own identity, but doesn't know how to separate herself from her family.

* * *

_

"What do you want, Liz?" Kyle snapped, tossing his backpack onto a chair near the back of the class and glaring at the brunette who had just approached him.

"Look, Kyle, about before…" Liz began, but Kyle waved a hand and cut her off.

"Forget it, Liz. There isn't anything you could say that I would want to hear. Not right now, anyway." He shook his head in disgust and tried to turn away, but Liz wasn't willing to give up yet.

"Look, it was just a hard day, okay?" Liz begged. "I didn't mean what I said."

"No, of course not," Kyle drawled. "You just accused me of lying to you and stealing your journal for the fun of it." He ran a hand through his hair and continued, "Why would I want to read your journal, anyway?"

Sara joined the other two at just the right moment to catch the last of Kyle's questioned and grinned sardonically. "I'm sure it's _fascinating_ reading," she deadpanned.

"What's fascinating?" Trudy asked, approaching behind Sara.

"Liz Parker's journal," Sara said, flashing Trudy a wry grin. Trudy raised an eyebrow in response, clearly lost, and then turned to Kyle, as though asking for an explanation.

Kyle was still glaring at Liz.

"Look, Kyle, I didn't mean…" Liz closed her eyes briefly, taking a deep breath, then said, "When I heard you on the phone, and I thought you were talking to your father, and I just…"

"To my Dad?" Kyle repeated, his eyes clouded with confusion. "Why would my Dad be interested in what is in your journal?" He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "What _is_ in your journal, Liz?"

Fortunately for Liz, Tess entered the class at that point, and said bitingly, "Nothing worth discussing, I'm sure." She flopped gracefully into a seat next to Kyle and switched the subject. "Has anyone met with this Topolski woman yet? Because I really don't see myself as the 'sharing my inner hopes and fears with a complete stranger' type."

Kyle, Trudy, and Sara took seats around Tess and launched into a discussion of the futility of guidance counselors. A moment later, Cliff and two other jocks, Chris and Tommy, joined them, and Liz and her journal were forgotten.

Liz breathed a sigh of relief. She had really not wanted to answer that question. But as she turned to go, she saw Isabel staring at her from two rows over, her tawny eyes narrowed venomously.

Liz winced as she sat down, knowing Isabel was sure to have something to say as soon as class was over. Something about how she needed to think before she spoke to Kyle because he might report to her father, or how she should never have brought up the journal again, or that she as tempting fate.

And sure enough…

The minute class was over, Isabel pulled Liz into the hallway and glared at the smaller girl. "Are you out of your mind? Why did you have to bring that up with Kyle? Now he wants to know what you've got to hide! Do you want to get us all killed?"

"Isabel, I was just trying to apologize," Liz defended herself sharply. "I didn't realize he was going to ask what was in my journal." She swung her dark hair out of her face, her eyes tired and frustrated.

"Well you should have left well enough alone," Isabel snapped back.

Liz shook her head, not understanding why Isabel was reacting like this. Granted the statuesque alien had never been incredibly nice to Liz, she was never like this. Her anger and dislike were subtle, not loud. Right now she seemed so…so _volatile_.

"God, what is with you?" Isabel continued ranting, her voice low enough that she wouldn't be overheard by anyone. "Can't you ever think before you do something? It's no wonder Max likes you. You both act without considering the consequences and how they might affect other people."

Liz was at a loss for words. "Isabel, I didn't…" she let the sentence drift off, having no idea of what to say.

"Didn't what?" Isabel pressed, her tone mocking. "Didn't think? Didn't care? Didn't what, Liz?" She stopped for a moment and rubbed her temples, then said, "You know what, never mind. It doesn't matter. I'll ask Tess take care of it. Hell, maybe I'll ask her to take care of you as well!" She turned and flounced away, leaving a very bewildered Liz staring after her in surprise and confusion.

* * *

"Trudy McIntire, I believe?" Ms. Topolski said, smiling brightly at the girl who had entered the room. She gestured with one hand while flipping through a file with the other, her eyes flicking back and forth between the girl and the papers in her hand. "I'm Ms. Topolski." 

"You're the new guidance counselor, right?" Trudy asked with a hesitant smile.

"Yes, I am," Ms. Topolski answered. "You look nervous. I assure you, I don't bite." She grinned, flashing two rows of perfect white teeth.

Trudy nodded, looking slightly embarrassed. "I know…" She laughed, quickly and abruptly, and said, "I've just had a weird couple of days."

"Tell me about it?"

Trudy shrugged. "I doubt it is the sort of thing you would want to know about. Boy stuff."

"Anything that affects you I am open to hearing," Ms. Topolski assured the girl.

Trudy nodded and looked down at her hands which were folded in her lap. "I guess I'm just having difficulties, you know? I mean, the guy I'm dating is great, and I've had a crush on him forever, but he used to be dating this other girl, who is clearly still very important to him. And I told him that I trusted him when he said he wanted to patch things up with her, and I even helped him figure out what to say, but I only did all that because I didn't want him to know that I was jealous. You know?"

"I know," Ms. Topolski answered understandingly. She reached across the desk and placed a hand on Trudy's arm. "Is there anything else in your life, anything at all, that could be adding to your insecurity?"

"I don't think so," Trudy answered after a moment of reflection. "I mean, school is hard, and all that…plus Sara and Jessica and Tess are so…" Trudy frowned and stopped herself before she could finish the sentence.

"So what?" Ms. Topolski pressed.

Trudy sighed. "They have nice sides, they really do. I mean, they are so nice to me, and so supportive of this while deal with Kyle, but…they can just be so mean everyone else, and I want to say something to them, but I can't…"

"It takes a lot of courage to criticize our friends, Ms. McIntire. But sometimes it is the right thing to do."

"I know…" Trudy sighed heavily.

Ms. Topolski watched her for a moment, then shook her head. Either Trudy did not know anything useful, or she was an incredibly good actress. But whatever was going on with Kyle Valenti…

She looked down at one of the files on her desk. Kyle Valenti's ex-girlfriend had been at the Crashdown that day, when the gun had gone off. Liz Parker…she was the girl who had supposedly been covered in ketchup…

Agent Topolski was a good agent, better than most. What made her good was that she always trusted her instincts. Her instincts had told her that something was going on, that there were secrets to be revealed, that Liz Parker was the key to all this, that whatever had caused Kyle and Liz to break up might have been involved, and that Trudy might know more than she realized.

Which meant the Trudy could be quite valuable to her in the future…

* * *

"So tell me, Ms. Parker, where do you see yourself in ten years?" Ms. Topolski asked as Liz settled herself into the seat. 

"Molecular biologist," Liz answered automatically. "Or, dream, dream, dream job would be the head of Molecular Biology at Harvard University." She flashed a hesitant smile. "It's what I've always wanted."

"Always?" Ms. Topolski asked, her voice light and sweet. "That's quite a long time."

"Well, I've known since I was little," Liz explained confidently. "I just…I love science. I don't know, but there is something about it. When I first walked into this lab, it had this distinct smell. The smell of sulfur. And I knew that this was right for me, this was what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing."

"Do you plan everything out in your life? The way you planned this out, I mean?" Ms. Topolski asked.

Liz shrugged. "I like knowing what is going to happen next."

"Do you ever just let life happen to you?"

"No," Liz answered simply. "I don't like being out of control."

Ms. Topolski sighed and nodded understandingly. "I know how you feel, Ms. Parker, but you have to understand that life comes as it pleases. Sometimes you don't have a choice, sometimes you have to be out of control. Sometimes you simply have to accept."

Liz seemed perturbed by the comment, her eyebrows knitting together as she thought it over. Ms. Topolski watched her intently, her mind whirling as she thought over everything she knew, everything she had heard, and everything she suspected.

The key to the entire mystery of the shooting was sitting right in front of her, if only she could find a way to figure it out.

* * *

Ms. Topolski flipped through the papers, frowning. Michael Guerin was supposed to be here now, but he had not shown up. When she had asked one of the assistants in the office, they had assured her that this was not unusual, Michael Guerin rarely showed up for class. And yet, the boy seemed to be doing well in all his classes. His grades were not unusually good, he was averaging a 3.2. But that was certainly better than some. 

He obviously put some effort into his school work. Why didn't he show up, then? And why did everyone at the school think he was the bad boy?

She flipped to the last page of the report and stared at the words. It was a detailed summary of Michael's living situation, and it sent chills down her spine. She didn't have to be a social worker to know a deadbeat dad when she saw one, and Hank Guerin fit the bill perfectly.

So were Michael's repeated absences from school due to his troubled home situation, or was there something else there, something not in the report?

"Ms. Harding," Ms. Topolski stood up and smiled as Tess entered the room. She gestured for the blonde to take a seat, and Tess complied, slipping into the chair and surveying Ms. Topolski through guarded eyes.

"I'm Ms. Topolski, the new guidance counselor," Ms. Topolski introduced herself.

"I know," Tess answered bluntly. She crossed her arms over her chest and pressed her lips into a thin line, waiting.

Ms. Topolski paused, slightly flustered by Tess' sharp words. She regained her composure quickly though, and smiled brightly. "Good. I won't have to go through those silly introductions. I can get straight to the questions." She glanced at Tess. "Unless you have any questions yourself."

Tess shook her head wordlessly.

"Can you tell me, Ms. Harding, about Jennifer and Andrew Harding?" Ms. Topolski.

Something flickered through Tess' eyes, some emotion, but it disappeared so quickly that Ms. Topolski wondered if she had imagined it. The shutters dropped over those pretty blue orbs again, and the girl's face was impassive once again.

Tess tilted her head to one side and said quietly, "I'd rather not." Although her words were soft, polite, her tone left little doubt that she would not be answering any questions on that subject.

Ms. Topolski switched subjects adroitly. "How old were you when you came to live with Sheriff Valenti?"

"Seven," Tess answered readily. "Although the adoption didn't happen until I was nine."

"Do you get along with them well?" Ms. Topolski asked, trying to keep her tone gentle. "The Sheriff and…" she looked through the file for a moment, "…and Kyle, I mean?"

Tess raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "Of course."

"Good," Ms. Topolski said. "I know these might seem like odd questions, but I need to know the background of each of my students. And of course, I want to keep an eye on people who have a rough past. To make sure you are all doing alright."

"I'm fine," Tess said coolly. "I have a 4.0, I'm on the honor roll, I've never gotten in trouble here. What could be wrong?"

"I meant outside of school, Ms. Harding," Topolski replied in a low voice. She held her breath, waiting, but when Tess said nothing, she continued, "Well, if there is anything you ever want to talk about…"

"I never need to talk," Tess answered.

Ms. Topolski nodded at Tess, meeting those startling sapphire eyes, and was suddenly, quite abruptly, unsettled.

And left with the distinct impression that this was a girl who knew how to keep secrets.

* * *

"Isabel!" Max hissed angrily as he grabbed his sister's hand to stop her. They were standing in the parking lot next to Max's car, waiting for Michael to arrive. Isabel was pacing restlessly while Max was watching her, trying to have a conversation. "Isabel, stop and listen to me." 

"So you can lecture me about scaring Ms. Perfect-Parker?" Isabel retorted. "I'll pass, thanks."

"Isabel, what has gotten into you today?" Max demanded angrily. "You're never like this. Scaring Liz is something Tess would do, but not you."

"She got Kyle interested in what's in her journal," Isabel snarled. "What if he repeats it to his Dad? Tess continually warns us to tread as carefully around Kyle as we do around the Sheriff, and she goes and ruins it all."

"She didn't ruin anything," Max replied. He rubbed his eyes wearily. Isabel had been short-tempered all day, and he had no idea why. But it was driving him nuts. "Kyle isn't a threat to us."

"We don't know that," Isabel snapped back, her face flushed.

"No, but if you threaten to have Tess 'take care of Liz' chances are Liz is going to be a threat some time soon," Max countered, the words leaving his mouth before he could think over them.

Isabel smiled triumphantly. "So you finally admit that the love of your might be a problem for us?" she asked, her tone dripping with sarcastic sweetness.

"No!" Max answered back sharply. "I just…" He closed his eyes and drew a sharp breath, getting his anger under control. "Izzy, just tell me what's wrong. I know something is bothering you."

"Besides your girlfriends almost spilling our secret?" Isabel asked cynically.

"Who spilled our secret?" Michael questioned wearily as he joined the other two by the car. He glanced back and forth between the siblings, sensing the tension in the air, and wondered briefly whether or not he should back out now while he still had the chance.

"Liz is getting pretty close to doing it," Isabel snapped. "For all we know, Maria is to."

"What about Alex?" Max shot back. "You didn't have any trouble going to him for help."

"This isn't about Alex," Isabel replied, her voice dropping to barely more than a whisper and becoming positively glacial.

"Then what is it about?" Max questioned, his hands on his hips.

"It's about you not listening to me," Isabel said, her voice suddenly exploding with rage. Several students turned to look at her and she quickly quieted again. After a moment of collecting herself, she said, "This is about Ms. Topolski implying that I should be the same as you. This is about not having my own identity outside of you three. This is about being stuck in this life I don't want, worrying about a threat I can't see, and never being able to change it!"

Max stared at Isabel, stunned. She rarely broke down like this, and that instantly told him that she was more than just scared.

She was terrified.

Max reached out to comfort her, placing a hand on her arm. "Izzy," Michael soothed. "Look, all these problems…they can be fixed. Dealt with. Okay?"

Isabel sniffed and shrugged. "I'm scared," Isabel admitted. She paused and looked away, fear and fury making her body shake. Steadying herself with a hand on the hood of the car, she continued in a tightly controlled tone, "You may think it is nothing, but I know different. Something is happening. Something is wrong with Hannigan, and you…you're laughing at me. You don't believe me and I am scared out of my mind!"

"We believe you," Michael said, speaking up quickly. "All of us, we believe you. And we will figure this out. Together. As a family."

Isabel stared at him for a moment then shrugged again, her temper finally completely under control. "Fine, whatever," she said icily and yanked the door to the car open. "Good to know that throwing a temper tantrum is the only way to get your attention, though."

Max and Michael traded glances and groaned simultaneously.

This was going to get worse before it got better.

* * *

Next Chapter: Flashes 

Due: Friday 1/20

Sorry, but it will take me two weeks for this next update because I am going out of town and won't have access to a computer or the internet.


	17. Flashes

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Flashes are in italics. Just a reminder, none of the teenagers besides Tess and Kyle know that Hannigan is dead because the police can't release a victim's name unless they have the family's permission, and Mrs. Hannigan hasn't given it yet. Also, I know it is taking me a while to make M/M and A/I appear, but I promise they will eventually. Not in this chapter, but eventually... Oh, and lastly, if you want a reply to the review, make sure to be logged in when you review or to leave your e-mail in the appropriate box.

* * *

Chapter Sixteen: Flashes

"I'm serious, Max," Liz whispered, casting a worried glance at the door to her bedroom. She was perched on the edge of her bed, journal in hand, a pencil lying at her side. "My parents could come up at any moment and they'll flip out if they see you here." She gestured towards the open window. "You have to go. And close the window on your way out."

Max glanced over at the window and waved a hand, and the glass pane shut with a sharp snap. He took a seat on the edge of her bed and said, "Window's closed."

Liz laughed as she leaned across the bed to kiss Max. "But you're on the wrong side of it."

Max broke the kiss and looked at her innocently. "Doesn't seem that way to me," he replied, smiling. He kissed her again, leaning in even more and placing his hands on her hips. A few strands of Liz's hair fell onto his face, tickling his skin.

"Max, seriously," Liz protested. She pushed at Max's chest, forcing him backward, but unable to keep the wide grin from spreading across her face.

"I am being serious. And I seriously think that I am on the right side of the window," Max replied with a smirk. He pushed the hair out of Liz's eyes and became somber almost immediately. "About what Isabel said to you earlier today…"

"About getting Tess to 'take care of me?'" Liz asked, her dark eyes filled with an odd combination of anger and amusement. "What about it?"

"She's been on edge lately," Max explained. "And I haven't been incredibly supportive of her. What she said to you…well, her anger was really directed at me. Nobody would ever get Tess to take care of you," Max finished.

Liz raised an eyebrow. "Are you guys okay?"

Max looked away briefly, staring off into nothingness as he contemplated the question. There was a silence in the room for a moment, then Max said quietly, "I'm not sure."

"Max…? What's wrong?" Liz pressed, concern etched across her features.

Max shook his head. "Either Isabel is paranoid, or there is something seriously wrong with Deputy Hannigan. I'm not sure which." He ran a hand through his hair, then shook his head. "I'll tell you about it when we know something for certain. In the meantime, stay away from him."

"Tell me what's wrong now, not later," Liz requested. When Max shook his head, Liz reached out and placed a hand on his elbow. "We can help, Max. Alex, Maria, and I, we can help you."

"No," Max said again, firmer this time. "I don't think that is a good idea."

"It isn't the four of you and the three of us, Max. It is the seven of us, and we are in this together," Liz protested, frustrated. Whatever it was that bothering Max, she wanted to know. She wanted to help.

Max smiled at her, a true smile that put her more at ease. "Liz, it isn't that I don't think you are part of the group. It's just…until I know for certain what we are up against, I don't want to risk getting you involved."

"Is it dangerous? Are you in trouble?" Liz asked, growing more concerned by the moment.

Were they in trouble? Again, Max was silent, contemplating the question. His gut instinct was no, they weren't. How could they be? Isabel was just paranoid, she had to be paranoid. There were no other aliens in town.

But…

But this was Isabel. This was his sister. And if she said something was wrong…

"I have no idea," Max admitted honestly. He got up and started pacing slowly, his weary eyes half-closed. "Isabel's got a feeling about something, but I… I just don't know."

"Feeling?" Liz questioned. She frowned, remembering the conversation they had had at the cliffs a couple weeks ago. The conversation where Tess had said that she had a _feeling_ something was going to happen, and she was afraid. "Is something is going on, Max, something dangerous, then you need to tell us all. Alex, Maria, and I need to know, need to be prepared. Just in case."

Max looked over at her and nodded. "I know, Liz. But all I can tell you right now is to stay away from the Sheriff, his men, and people you don't know."

"Max…"

"Not because I don't want to tell you more, but because I don't have anything else I _can _tell you. Liz, I don't know what is going on. None of us do. But we are looking into it, and you can't help up with that. Because if you get involved in it…I just don't want you to get hurt."

"But its okay to tell Isabel, Michael, and Tess?" Liz demanded, not understanding. "Why can you get them hurt? Why aren't you protecting them?"

"I _am_ protecting them," Max shot back angrily. He rubbed his eyes and sat down on the bed again. "But they have gifts, Liz. They can protect themselves. You can't. And if there is another alien in town, and if you put yourself in danger, all you will be is a liability."

Liz bristled, annoyed at being referred to as a liability, although she did see some of the sense in Max's words. She opened her mouth to retort, however, when something else Max had said registered, and her jaw dropped in surprise. "There's another alien in town?"

"I don't know," Max replied. He leaned over to kiss her, but she drew back and looked at him seriously. He sighed and said, "Stay away from Deputy Hannigan, okay?"

"Hannigan is an alien?" Liz breathed, shocked.

"I don't know," Max repeated, grimacing inwardly. He had been saying that a lot lately. He leaned forward to kiss Liz again, and this time she returned the kiss, closing her eyes as she did so.

_Stars erupted behind her closed lids. A hallway stretched out forever, littered with dead bodies. The sun rose in the morning sky, and two moons set on the other side of the planet. The air was stale, and voices filled the silence. Liz did not understand the words, but she sensed the fear and loss behind them. Then there was a scream, panicked and escalating in volume, then two people appeared. Liz could not actually see them, but she sensed their presence, and realized with surprise that she recognized it. It was Max and Tess, and they were running somewhere. Unable to see clearly, Liz was unsure how she knew this, but she knew, without a doubt, who these people were. The two aliens were scared, but she could sense an undercurrent of other emotions. Max radiated command and authority. Beneath the power, she could sense love, romantic love, and concern, directed at Tess. And the same feelings seeped from Tess, stronger and more powerful than Liz could believe. She was suddenly lost in the emotions, they were so strong they overwhelmed her. She gasped as colors played back and forth across her closed eyelids, then she heard another scream, she felt, rather than saw, Max reach out to Tess and clutched her tightly in an embrace, felt the hot breath as Max pressed a kiss into Tess' hair, then the emotions and colors faded away, and she was back in the corridor of dead bodies, staring down at the blood that seeped over the floor._

"Liz? Liz!"

Liz opened her eyes. She was lying on her back on her bed, and Max was leaning over her, worry in his eyes. She pushed herself into a sitting position and placed a hand on her head. The Flash had been so powerful she had been unable to break out of it, and being caught in someone else's memories terrified her. She swallowed and blinked groggily, willing her mind to come back to Earth.

"Are you okay?" Max whispered, pressing his hand against her cheek.

"I saw a flash…" Liz murmured.

"You've never reacted to a flash like that," Max protested. "I mean, you practically passed out in my arms. What happened to you?"

"I was caught in the flash, and I couldn't get out," Liz explained, sitting all the way up and leaning against the wall of her room. She tucked her feet underneath her and rested her hands on her knees. "I saw…I saw a lot, Max. I think…I think I saw you."

"What?" Max breathed, his eyes lighting up. "You saw me? You saw where I was from?"

"No," Liz corrected herself. "I didn't actually see you. But I felt that you were there. I…I just new, instinctively, that you were there, and I could sense what you felt and what you were doing and…" she broke off as she remembered the love and fear between Max and Tess. "It's complicated, I can't explain it," she finished lamely, her voice weary.

"What was I doing?" Max pressed, playing with a strand of Liz's hair.

Liz closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then rushed the words out quickly, as though hoping that the sooner she said them, the sooner she would not have to think about their possible meanings. "You were kissing Tess."

Max nearly choked. He stared at Liz, uncomprehendingly, then said in a hesitant voice, "You're serious? I was kissing Tess? I wasn't…you aren't…this is real?"

Liz nodded. "You two were running from something. Or to something. Either way, you were scared, but more scared for her than you were for yourself. And you loved her, I could feel it. And she loved you. It was strong."

"That's impossible," Max protested, trying to imagine himself with Tess. He did love the petite hybrid, despite how frustrating to deal with she often was, but he was not in love with her. And he could not imagine ever even _wanting_ to be in love with her.

He was in love with Liz.

He had been in love with Liz since third grade.

"I think you were a leader of some sort," Liz continued quietly. "I could feel that also. You were…used to giving orders. And used to having them followed." She shrugged and looked helplessly at Max. "That's all."

"That's… a lot," Max murmured. He gave Liz a gentle kiss on the cheek just as the door behind them swung open. Liz groaned inwardly and Max quickly jumped away from her, as they both turned guiltily to face the surprised and slightly perturbed Mrs. Parker.

* * *

"She was in her room with the Evans boy?" Mr. Parker asked, worried. He shook his head. He did not like this, he did not like his daughter moving so quickly. Only a month ago she was seriously dating Kyle Valenti, and now she was kissing Max Evans in her room. 

"She's a teenager," Mrs. Parker pointed out. "And they were only kissing. It was a very chaste kiss, even."

"Yeah, well, we don't know what they were doing before you walked in," Mr. Parker countered, running a hand through his hair and staring at his wife thoughtfully.

"They might not have been doing anything," Mrs. Parker replied consolingly.

Mr. Parker snorted. "They were doing something," he replied. "Trust me, their both teenagers, they are in the same room kissing without parental supervision…"

"Well, what do you want to do about it?" Mrs. Parker asked, slightly exasperated. "I don't want Lizzie making out with Max Evans anymore than you do, but she is sixteen. And she is growing up."

"Well, we'll just have to stop her," Mr. Parker replied, smiling slightly as he wrapped his arms around his wife's waist. "I'm sure that somehow we can keep her as a little girl all her life."

Mrs. Parker laughed at his teasing and placed her hands on his shoulders. "You can certainly try, but I doubt you will succeed." Her expression sobered abruptly, and she said, "I think right now it is important to let her know that we trust her and we love her and she can talk to us about anything."

"And we'll only be removing the door from her bedroom for a few years," Mr. Parker suggested, smirking.

Mrs. Parker laughed and hit him lightly on the chest. "Stop it, you," she admonished, although she had to admit that the idea sounded like a good one. She didn't want her little Lizzie growing up either. But sooner or later she knew she just had to let go...

* * *

"Kyle, please, listen to me," Liz begged, following the football player down the hallway of the school. "Please, can we just talk?" 

"Why?" Kyle demanded. "I tried to patch things up with you and you didn't even care." He shook his head disbelievingly. "And now you want me to listen to you?"

"I never meant to hurt you!" Liz cried.

"You're too late," Kyle replied coldly. He stared at Liz for a long time, then shrugged and turned away from her, walking over to his locker. Liz followed him and stood there in awkward silence, unsure of what to say or do. "Liz…just tell me why," Kyle said at last.

"Why what?" Liz asked, although she knew what Kyle was referring to.

"Why Max? What did you see in him? Why did you do this, break up with me like this? Why?" Kyle repeated, unable to keep the hurt out of his voice.

Liz ran a hand through her hair. "I didn't mean for things to be like this, Kyle," Liz whispered. "I don't have any defense other than that I didn't want to hurt you."

Kyle nodded slowly. He slammed his locker door shut and glanced around the slowly filling hallway. "Liz, one day I will forgive you, and maybe we can be friends then. But not today. Not right now. It still hurts too much." He held Liz's gaze for a beat, then turned and walked away, leaving Liz alone by the locker.

After a moment of hesitation, Liz turned and went to her class as well.

Once the two were gone, Trudy stepped out of the nearby classroom where she had been standing, listening to the conversation. She swallowed her frustration at the situation and leaned against the wall, thinking. She liked Kyle. A lot. And she wanted to believe that he liked her as well. But she saw the hurt in his eyes when he looked at Liz and Max, she heard the sorrow in his voice when he spoke of what had happened.

And she couldn't help but wonder what she was doing in this relationship. Were she and Kyle actually dating, or was she just a rebound girl?

"Are you alright, Trudy?"

Trudy turned and stared at the guidance counselor who had appeared behind her. "Yeah, I'm fine, Ms. Topolski," she replied, forcing a smile.

"Really?" Ms. Topolski questioned, her voice inflected just enough to suggest disbelief. "You look troubled. And I wouldn't be a very good guidance counselor if I didn't ask you what was wrong."

Trudy shrugged, clearly uncomfortable, and said, "Nothing serious."

"You can confide in me," Ms. Topolski said gently, placing a hand on Trudy's shoulder. "I'm always here for anything, no matter how trivial it may seem to you." She sent Trudy a warm smile and walked away, the click of her heels echoing in the hallway.

* * *

"She said that you and Tess were together in another life?" Isabel whispered incredulously as she took a seat next to Max in the classroom. "That's insane." 

"Would you stick on track?" Max asked angrily, glancing around to make sure they were not being overheard. Fortunately the two were sitting at the back of the room, and most of the class had not arrived yet, so there was no one close enough to hear their hushed words. "She said I was a leader of some type."

"So?" Isabel asked. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"What if I'm supposed to be a leader now?" Max asked, slightly troubled. At Isabel's confused look, he elaborated, "Do you ever get senses of déjà vu? Like something has happened before?"

Isabel shrugged. "Sure, I get that feeling a lot. We all do. What of it?"

Max hesitated, then said, "Sometimes I feel like…like I'm supposed to have the answers. Like I'm supposed to make the decisions. Like everything is resting on me." He rubbed his eyes and paused, then continued, "After Tess and I had the big fight a few weeks ago, I've felt it more and more."

"So?" Isabel repeated. "You're getting nervous because you have so many questions and no answers. We all feel like that." She ran a hand through her hair and sighed in annoyance.

Max looked at her for a moment, then said, "It's more than that, Izzy. It feels as though I'm _supposed_ to have the answers."

Isabel looked down at her desk. "You ordered me to stay out of Maria's and Alex's head, and I did. I followed your order without even thinking about it, because it felt like the right thing to do. Like something I had done before." She drew a breath. "Déjà vu, I guess."

Max stared at his sister and said nothing.

"Maybe you were a leader in another life, Max. And maybe you were supposed to have the answers." She looked out the window of the classroom and off into the distance, contemplating the life none of them remembered.

"I don't have that anymore," Max muttered. Isabel turned to look at him sharply, and he looked away, unable to meet her piercing gaze. "I don't know how to lead."

"You don't have to lead, Max. You've got us. We'll stand by you no matter what happens," Isabel reassured him. "You aren't on your own, and none of us are expecting you to have all the answers."

Max nodded slowly, unable to shake the feeling that he _was_ supposed to have all the answers. And that he had had this same conversation with his sister once before, in a different place, a different time, and a different life. "And I'm sorry."

"For what?" Isabel asked.

"Not listening to you about Hannigan. You're my sister, and I should have trusted you more. I'm looking into it now, though. And I'll get Tess to keep her ears open also. Maybe we'll get some answers"

"Thanks," Isabel said quietly, nodding her head to accept both Max's apology and his offer of help. There was a silence, then Isabel murmured quietly, "It's ironic, though."

"What?" Max asked.

"With all the gifts the four of us have at our disposal, it was Liz who saw the answers." Her voice had an odd quality to it, part annoyance, part frustration, part jealousy, and part relief.

"Yeah… ironic," Max agreed.

Isabel suddenly smirked and said, "Although, I don't know if I trust the validity of her flashes if she saw you and Tess together."

Max grinned at the comment. "True…" he agreed. "Very true." He paused, then explained, "She didn't actually see us, though. She just sensed that we were there. It's too bad, because she can't even tell us what we looked like in a past life." He stared thoughtfully at the front of the room. "Still…what she's seen…they've been some pretty big clues to our past, don't you think?"

"Some of it," Isabel agreed. "War and you being a leader…" she let the sentence drift off, then turned to Max as an idea suddenly occurred to her. "Hey, do you think you were like a general or something?"

"Maybe," Max agreed slowly, but somehow, that just didn't seem right.

"But come on, Max, you and Tess?" Isabel laughed. "That's ridiculous. It's like…it's like saying Michael and I should get together..." Isabel's eyes suddenly lit up as a wicked smirk spread across her face. Max watched her nervously, sensing that whatever idea she had come up with, it did not bode well for him.

"Izzy…?"

"You think it is incredibly funny that Mom thinks Michael and I are dating, don't you?" Isabel asked mockingly, her smirk growing as realization dawned on Max and his expression turned to one of horror.

"You wouldn't," he hissed.

Isabel smiled and tilted her head to one side. "It still doesn't get back at Michael, I admit. But I think it will have to do for getting back at you." Max narrowed his eyes and glared at her, but Isabel just smiled serenely back.

"It won't work," Max countered. "Mom knows that Liz and I are dating."

"Does she?" Isabel asked quietly, her eyes glowing with pleasure. "She knows you and Liz have become good friends. And she has an idea that you are dating, although she isn't sure how serious it is since the Parkers didn't know until quite recently what had happened with you and Liz and Kyle. But if Mom thought that it was just casual dating, and that you were secretly infatuated with Tess…"

"Izzy…"

Isabel laughed and shook her head, her pretty blonde hair falling across her eyes. "You know, she's always liked Tess. I think she remembers that we actually used to be really good friends with her. She's asked me once or twice why I stopped being friends with Tess…" Isabel frowned as another thought occurred to her. "Hey, I could casually let slip that the reason we aren't friends with Tess is because you developed a huge crush on her. You had no idea how to act around her, so you just started ignoring her, and she got upset and made new friends…"

"Isabel…"

"Then you would have to sit through Mom's whole lecture about the right way to treat girls, even ones you like, and you'd have to listen to Dad give you dating tips…"

"Isabel Evans…"

"Plus Mom would lecture you in stringing Liz along when you really wanted to be with someone else. And they wouldn't lay off you until you invited 'dear Tessie' around for dinner…"

"Isabel Amanda Evans," Max growled, his voice threatening. Isabel just sent him a chillingly sunny smile, and Max realized with growing dismay that he was well and truly doomed.

* * *

"What do you want, Maria?" Tess asked wearily. 

Maria jumped, startled at Tess' voice. She was standing a few feet behind the blonde alien, watching as Tess pulled a few school books out of her locker, and she didn't realize that Tess had sensed her presence.

"I need to talk to you," Maria said quietly, her heart hammering rapidly in her chest.

Tess turned and faced Maria coolly, one eyebrow raised in detached disbelief. "Oh?" she asked, managing to draw out the syllable.

Maria shifted from one foot to the other. "My mother's birthday is tomorrow," she said quietly. She stared at Tess, watching the confusion flicker through Tess' eyes.

"So?" Tess asked, bewildered at the comment, and clearly disinterested by the conversation.

Maria smirked inward, suddenly finding it quite amusing to know something that Tess did not. She paused, wanting to draw the moment out for as long as possible. Then she said triumphantly, "She's dating your father."

For the first time in her entire life, Tess Harding was at a complete loss for words. Her eyebrows shot into the air, and she stared, dumbfounded, at Maria.

"And I wasn't sure if he knew that it was her birthday," Maria continued. "She normally doesn't tell anyone, she says she doesn't like celebrating her birthday, and I just…I just wanted to make sure he bought her something and did something special."

Tess stared at Maria, her expression unreadable. For a moment, Maria thought the other girl was going to laugh at her. Or turn and walk away. Or blow her off. Or make some disparaging remark about her mother and how she wasn't good enough for Sheriff Valenti.

But Tess did none of those.

To Maria's great surprise, Tess nodded and said simply, "I'll make sure Jim knows," then turned around and walked away.

* * *

"Read this," Michael demanded, shoving a newspaper in front of Max and taking a seat next to him at the lunch table. 

"Nice to see you too," Isabel drawled, glancing up at Michael as she moved over to make room for him.

Max stared down at the paper, then up at Michael in confusion. Ignoring Isabel's sarcastic remark, Michael leaned forward and flipped to the local news section, then pointed to the first article on the paper. "Here," he instructed.

Max looked at the headline, his expression darkening as he did so. It read, in big bold letters, "Deputy Found Dead." Max scanned the article. Deputy Hannigan had been found dead outside the back door of the Crashdown two nights ago. The same night and the same place that Isabel had seen him…

"Tess didn't mention this," Max said slowly.

"It's police policy not to release the identify of the deceased until their family has given permission," Isabel pointed out. "Maybe Tess didn't know."

"Maybe," Max agreed, although he sincerely doubted it. He had told Tess to keep her ears open for anything unusual regarding Deputy Hannigan, how could she have missed something this big?

"Believe me now?" Isabel murmured quietly, glancing back and forth between her brother and Michael. They both nodded wordlessly.

"Well, I've got to talk to Tess after school," Max said at last. "If she knew and didn't tell us, I want to know why. And if she didn't know, then I want to see if there is anything she can figure out now that she does know." He folded the paper and put it in his backpack.

"You should tell her about the flashes also," Isabel added as she bit into her sandwich.

"Oh, did Liz have more flashes?" Michael asked, interested.

"Yeah," Isabel answered, chewing slowly. "They were more intense this time." Her statement was vague enough that Michael raised an eyebrow, unsure what exactly it was that was more intense, although his lips did quirk into a grin.

"The flashes," Max snapped, glaring at his sister and Michael. "Get your minds out of the gutter, you two."

"What did she see?" Michael questioned as he sorted through his lunch, looking for something edible. There was never much to choose from in Hank's kitchen, and more often then not, Michael was forced to rely on Isabel and Max for a decent meal. It galled his pride to know end, but they were both good enough to pretend as though they had over packed and simply had leftover lunch food that they would feel guilty about throwing out.

And sure enough…

"Mom packed me those cheese-and-cracker-things again," Isabel complained, "and I don't like them."

"Toss them," Max suggested.

"I can't," Isabel retorted. "Mom will ask why I didn't eat them and then comment that I am not getting enough nutrition." She held out the cheese-and-cracker snack to Michael. "If you eat them then at least when Mom asks, I can honestly say they got eaten."

Michael accepted the offering and stared down at it. He knew perfectly well that Isabel packed her own lunch, that Mrs. Evans never asked whether or not her children had eaten everything they had packed, and that Isabel had deliberately included these because she knew he liked them.

"Tell me about the flashes," Michael repeated as he opened the package and ate one of the crackers.

Isabel grinned and said, "Oh yes, Max. Tell him about you and Tess being together."

Michael paused, the cracker half way to his mouth and stared at Isabel. His gaze switched to Max in surprise, and he demanded in a confused and uncertain tone, "You and Tess? Together? As in…_together_?" He shook his head and laughed. "Now that I would pay to see."

* * *

Amy DeLuca flicked on her right turn signal, glancing over her shoulder as she did so, and swerved into the next lane. She was tired, coming back from a long day at work, and she wanted to get home as quickly as possible and collapse onto her sofa to watch television or read the rest of the novel she had started yesterday. Some chocolate, brownies, or a muffin. Or maybe a nice hot bubble bath… 

She hummed along with the radio and tapped her nails on the steering wheel. The sun was just setting along the horizon and the sky had turned a brilliant red. It was warm, but not hot, and the air was pleasantly silent.

Until the squealing of tires jolted Ms. DeLuca from her thoughts. She saw the truck a moment before it collided with her car, felt the sudden blaze of heat as the engine erupted into flame, and then her head slammed into the windshield and the world went black.

* * *

Next Chapter: Shockwave 

Due: Friday 1/27


	18. Shockwave

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's Note: I don't know much about car crashes, so if anything seems unreal, I apologize. Also, I don't remember if the show ever mentioned anything about Maria's father or why and when he left, so I made that up. So if anything is different from the show, well...this is AU.

Just a reminder, Nasedo in my story has yellow eyes, and when he changes shape, his eyes retain either their original color, or a yellow tinge. So any time in the story that I refer to someone with yellow or yellowish eyes, chances are, it is Nasedo. This will become more evident as the story progresses and the shape-shifter takes a larger role.

* * *

Chapter Seventeen: Shockwave

"Are you sure you don't want a ride home, Michael?" Max asked, confused as to why the brooding alien suddenly wanted to walk from school. He stared suspiciously at Michael, and idea forming in his mind. "Is something wrong with Hank?"

Michael's eyes darkened and Max knew instantly that he had asked the wrong question.

"I'm not avoiding going home, if that's what you are implying," Michael growled. He glanced at Isabel, who was sitting in the front seat of the car, watching them silently. "I just want the fresh air, and you have to talk to Tess this afternoon anyway."

Max hesitated, but he could tell by the look in Michael's eyes that the other alien was not going to back down from the request. "Alright, fine," Max agreed, giving in. "We'll call you if Tess has anything to say about Hannigan." He turned and climbed into the car, and a moment later he and Isabel drove away.

Michael watched the other car disappear out of the parking lot, then he stuck his hands in the pockets of his coat and walked away. He yawned tiredly and crossed the street from the school, heading towards the Crashdown. He wasn't entirely sure, but he hoped that a certain blonde waitress would be there this afternoon.

He had walked for about ten minutes when the sound of tires spinning out of control caught his attention. He turned around in time to see a truck come barreling out of a side street and crash into a smaller car at the corner. Michael found his feet moving before he could contemplate what he was doing, but the car burst into flame before he could reach it. He stumbled away, choking on the smoke, and stared in horror as he recognized the woman in the driver's seat of the car.

"Ms. DeLuca!" he screamed, running forward. The driver of the truck climbed out slowly, collapsing onto the road as he struggled to get away from the crash. Michael ignored the other man, moving towards the car. The heat burned his face and his skin, and he gasped for air. "Ms. DeLuca?" he repeated.

A crowd began to appear, milling around, trying to keep a safe distance from crash. A few men shouted at Michael, warning him away, but Michael ignored them and pushed forward.

Stepping in between the rubble of the destroyed cars, Michael placed his hand on the handle of the car. The metal burned his palm, and he yelped and dropped the metal. He shifted slightly so that his body obscured his hands from the view of the gathering crowd. Placing his hand close to the car, he used his powers to pry the door away without touching the metal, then leaned into the car and pulled the unconscious woman into the street.

He was dimly aware of the sound of ambulance sirens in the back ground. Two men and a woman appeared at his side, helping to pull Ms. DeLuca away from the wreck. Just as they reached the sidewalk, the car behind them exploded, shooting scrap metal into the air. Michael spun around and watched as fire consumed the car and the truck and thick black smoke swirled into the air.

The ambulance jerked to a stop next to the crowd and two medics leaped to the ground and run towards Ms. DeLuca. Michael backed away and watched silently as Ms. DeLuca was lifted from the cement and placed on a stretcher, and carried into the open back of the ambulance.

* * *

"So you knew about Hannigan?" Max demanded. He waited for Tess to respond, but the other side of the phone was silent. "Tess?" Max asked. 

"I knew that Hannigan was dead," Tess' voice replied at last. "I didn't know anything other than that."

"But you knew that he was dead and you didn't tell me?" Max practically screeched.

"I legally can't tell you," came Tess' response. "According to New Mexico State law…"

"I'm not interested in state law, Tess," Max snapped. "Not when it concerns our safety."

"What does his death tell you anyway?" Tess asked. "So Isabel saw him around the time he died. Big deal. It doesn't prove anything."

"Isabel thinks that Hannigan is an alien," Max answered, wincing as he heard Tess' laughter.

"Sure. And Liz, Maria, and Alex are aliens as well," she retorted sarcastically. There was a silence, then Tess said in a softer voice, "I'm keeping my ears open Max, and I would have told you the moment I had some kind of proof. But a simple death is not enough."

"You should have told me anyway," Max ground out. He closed his eyes for a moment, then said, "You should have told all of us."

"Oh, please. You didn't believe Isabel either."

"Well, I do now," Max argued back. "And you _will_ tell me if you hear any news." Again, there was a silence at the other end. Max waited for Tess to say something, but she was silent. Finally, he asked in annoyance, "Tess?"

"Why does Isabel think Hannigan is an alien? She's never thought that before."

"She thinks the person that she saw wasn't actually Hannigan."

"Then who was it?" Tess questioned.

"Someone with the ability to shift shape or to mind-warp like you can," Max explained.

"That ridiculous," Tess replied derisively.

"Do you really believe that?" Max asked curiously. There was a silence, then the sound of Tess' sighing, and finally her answer came in a soft and unsure tone.

"I don't know."

* * *

Maria shoved the door of the waiting room open and marched over to the front desk, her eyes filled with worry, her entire body shaking with fear. Liz followed behind her best friend, her own face pale as well. The minute Maria had received the news, the two of them had driven to the hospital, calling Alex from the road. He had promised to come immediately as well. 

"Amy DeLuca?" Maria demanded to the receptionist behind the desk. "She's been in a car accident. I'm her daughter."

The receptionist looked up and gave her a false smile, then turned to her computer. Her red nails clicked away at the key board for a moment, then she said, "Room 217, ma'am."

Maria turned and hurried down the hallway, not even pausing to listen to the rest of the receptionists words. Liz trailed behind, glancing around the unnaturally clean and sterile building. Although the hallway was quite short, in Maria's mind it seemed to stretch on forever and she quickened her pace as she walked, forcing Liz to break into a jog to keep up.

Standing outside of room 217 was Michael, his back to them, his shoulders slightly hunched. Maria paused as she saw him, her eyes narrowing angrily.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded hotly, and Michael turned around in surprise at the sound of her voice. "Is this some sort of Czechoslovakian thing?" She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Michael. "Did my mother get hurt because of something you did?"

Before Michael had a chance to respond, the doctor stepped out of the room and looked between the three teenagers in interest. "Are you Maria DeLuca?" he asked Maria. She nodded wordlessly, tearing her eyes away from Michael, and the doctor continued, "I'm Dr. Justin Drake, I'm the doctor on your mother's case." He smiled reassuringly, but Maria did not return the smile.

"How is she?" Maria demanded.

"I am sorry, Ms. DeLuca. Your mother is in critical condition. She has sustained some severe burns, head trauma, several fractured ribs, and possible spinal cord damage. We won't be able to tell more until she stabilizes," Drake replied regretfully. He hated telling family members that their loved ones might not make it, but Ms. DeLuca was in critical condition, and he could not lie to her daughter. So he turned to Michael instead, "I would like to check the burn on your hand now, Mr. Guerin. The metal of the car must have been very hot."

"Metal?" Maria asked quickly. "Burn?" She slanted an angry glare at Michael. "What are you doing here? If this is in anyway our fault… Or if you are here to upset my mother…" She left both threats hanging, her eyes blazing with anger.

"Mr. Guerin was the man who pulled your mother out of her car before it exploded," Drake said, slightly confused as to why Maria was accusing the other teenager of having caused the accident. "He saved your mother's life."

"Oh…" Maria stood there, stunned, her mouth opening and closing like a fish, before managing to say quietly, "Thanks."

"Maria?" Mrs. Parker's voice called as she and Mr. Parker appeared at the far end of the hallway of rooms. They hurried towards the other four as Maria turned around to face them. "Oh, Maria, I am so sorry. We came as soon as we heard. How is she?" Mrs. Parker asked, reaching the distraught girl and sweeping her into an embrace.

"Tomorrow's her birthday," Maria whispered, her voice choked with pain. "I told Tess to make sure that Sheriff knew and got her something so that it would be a special birthday, and now she's unconscious and in critical condition and the doctor doesn't know if she is going to be alright." Maria broke down into tears as Liz and Mr. Parker watched, and Drake lead Michael away.

Michael cast a look back at Maria, his face worried. She had told Tess to make sure that the Sheriff got her mother a present? Did that mean they were dating? Well, only one way to find out. He reached into his pocket with his non-burned hand and pulled out his cell phone, then punched in Tess' number.

* * *

"What do you mean, you're in the hospital?" Tess demanded instantly, her heart momentarily stopping as she heard Michael's pronouncement. 

"I'm not hurt," came Michael's reply. "Maria's mother was in a car accident, and I burned my hand pulling her out of the car before it exploded."

"Are you okay? Is she okay?" Tess asked, sinking onto her bed, her face drawn, her blue eyes clouded with fear.

"The doctor is looking at my burned hand as we speak," Michael answered.

"Don't let them take your blood," Tess ordered as she ran a hand through her blonde curls. There was a momentary silence, then she asked again, "Is she okay?"

"Any DeLuca? She's in critical condition. She's really hurt." Michael hesitated, then asked the question that had been the reason he had called. "Is she really dating Valenti?"

Tess closed her eyes and gave a shaky laugh. "Apparently. I've got to go, Michael. I need to tell Jim. Just make sure, whatever happens, they don't take your blood. Okay?"

"Okay," Michael agreed, knowing what the consequences of that mistake would be.

* * *

Tess had called Max and Isabel almost as soon as Michael had hung up, then had alerted the Sheriff to both Ms. DeLuca's condition and her upcoming birthday. Valenti had wanted to see his girlfriend right away, and Tess and Kyle had, in what was probably the only public show of family loyalty to their father either of them had made in a long time, agreed to come along for support. When they had finally arrived at the hospital, the distraught Sheriff had instantly demanded to know the details of the case, and then set off on a witch hunt to find the driver of the truck and arrest him. Unfortunately, the driver himself had been injured as well, and the doctor refused to let Valenti in to see him. This had only angered the Sheriff more, and Tess had been elected to try and talk some sense into him. The blonde alien disappeared, albeit reluctantly, to find her adopted father, leaving Kyle, the Parkers, Alex, Max, Isabel, and Michael alone in the hallway. 

"I'm glad you came," Liz whispered to Max as she watched Maria pace the hallway. The doctor had said that Maria would be able to see her mother after the last of the tests was run, but he didn't know when that would be, and Maria was restless. She had snapped at anyone who tried to comfort her, so the others had withdrawn to a taciturn silence and a safe distance.

Max squeezed her hand. "Of course," he whispered back. He looked over at the closed door behind which Maria's mother lay unconscious and hurt.

"You can't," Isabel whispered to Max, leaning over so that her voice wouldn't carry. There was no need for her to elaborate, Max knew what she meant. He couldn't heal Amy DeLuca.

But he couldn't stomach having to stand by and do nothing. "Why not?" he hissed back, his eyes shifting over to the distraught and tearful Maria. "It's not her time, and I can't just let her die!"

"She's been seriously hurt, Max, and if you go and heal her, someone is going to notice," Isabel shot back, casting an apprehensive glance at the Parkers and Kyle. Fortunately, the three of them were too far away to hear the hushed conversation.

"I know, but…"

"No buts," Isabel cut in. Again, she lowered her voice. "If you heal her and the FBI finds out, they'll take her too. Just to see if what you did changed her. You know that, Max. You know you can't do anything." Max didn't reply, so Isabel reached over and gripped his arm. "Do you understand, Max?"

Liz looked up, her eyes traveling between the two siblings. Isabel's face was set into a determined expression, her eyes guarded and closed. Max was looking in the other direction, but she could tell by the tilt of his head that he was frustrated at being helpless.

"I understand," Max murmured in a defeated and hopeless voice. He ran a hand through his hair and took a shaky breath. The hardest part of being a healer was having the power to do heal someone, and not being able to do it.

"How's your hand, Michael?" Isabel asked, turning away from Max and eyeing the bandage wrapped around Michael's palm.

"Fine," Michael replied shortly.

Another silence fell, then Mrs. Parker turned to Maria and murmured gently, "Perhaps someone should call your father…?"

Maria frowned at the older woman and gave a dark chuckle. "Somehow, I doubt he would care." She ran a hand through her short hair and continued, "The guy bailed on Mom when she was still pregnant with me. Why bring him back into the family now?"

"He might want to know," Kyle suggested.

"Yeah, right," Maria snapped back, rolling her eyes and continuing her tense pacing. "What would you know about it, anyway?"

Kyle's eyes hardened and he answered in a cold tone, "You'd be surprised." Maria turned to him, regret in her eyes, but he turned away before she got a chance to say anything. "I'm going to go and find Dad and Tess," he said, and walked determinedly away, refusing to look back.

Maria swallowed and glanced over at Liz and Alex. "I forgot about his mother…" she murmured to explain her actions.

"You were upset," Alex said quickly, reassuringly. "And with good reason. Kyle understands that."

Maria nodded. She was not particularly found of Kyle, or of the people that he hung out with at school, but while he and Liz had been dating, she had tried to remain on speaking terms with him. For Liz's sake. Once Liz had broken up with the football star, she had hoped that it would mean she no longer had to 'play nice.' Unfortunately, she had found out that her mother was dating the Sheriff, and that drastically changed the dynamics between them all, yet again.

"I can't believe I could end up related to Tess and Kyle," Maria complained, changing the subject. "That's going to be hell."

Alex walked over to Maria and took her by the arm, pulling her into a sitting position on a nearby bench. He understood her need to think about something, anything, other than what was happening to her mother right now, so he replied lightly, "At least you'll all have different last names."

"Huh?" Maria questioned, confused.

"Tess Harding. Kyle Valenti. Maria DeLuca. Different last names," Alex elaborated. "If anyone asks, you can always deny any relation to them."

"True…" Maria managed a small smile at that and sighed, closing her eyes and leaning her head on Alex's shoulder. She had missed the easy friendship the two of them used to have before the aliens had entered their lives. Ever since they had broken up and Liz had started dating Max, she hadn't seen much of either of her best friends. It was good to know that they were still there for her, that they would still drop everything to be at her side in a crisis.

Her eyes closed, Maria did not see the hardening of Michael's features as he watched the way Alex so easily offered her comfort. But Alex saw the wave of emotion pass through Isabel's eyes, saw the way she turned sharply away from him, and wondered what it meant.

"It's odd that Tess doesn't have the same last name as the Sheriff and Kyle," Mr. Parker commented. He had seen Tess on a few rare occasions, so he knew only a very little about her. She and Liz were certainly not friends, but when Liz had been dating her brother, the two girls had run into each other frequently at social events.

Maria did not seem overly concerned by Tess' last name, and she and Alex talked quietly of other matters, Alex doing his best to keep her spirits lifted and her mind away from darker thoughts.

Michael and Isabel retreated to another bench and sat down, waiting in silence. Isabel ran a hand through her hair repeatedly, wondering how much longer they were going to be there. She understood that Max needed to be here for Liz, and that Tess needed to be here for the Sheriff and Kyle, but she didn't see a reason for her or Michael to stick around.

Except…

Except _she_ had not missed the hardening of Michael's features when Alex comforted Maria, and she had a fairly good idea of why Michael was still here.

The Parkers withdrew as well, giving the teens space, although Mr. Parker continued to give Max appraising glances, as though trying to determine if he was good enough for Liz, or would the girl be better off with Kyle?

"Max, what happened to the Hardings?" Liz asked abruptly, turning her attention away from Maria and Alex and glancing over at her boyfriend. Neither Maria nor Alex heard the question, and the Parkers were making a taciturn point of not eavesdropping on their daughter's conversation, but Isabel stiffened and slanted a look at Max, and Michael raised an eyebrow at the question.

Max sighed and closed his eyes. He knew the question would eventually come, he had been expecting it since the night Liz first asked why Tess' last name was not Valenti. He ran a hand shakily through his hair and then turned to Liz, meeting her waiting eyes.

"The Hardings were killed in a car accident about a year after Tess was adopted," Max replied. He lapsed into silence, remembering the few conversations he had had with Tess about her first set of parents. The conversations had always been strained, guarded. Tess spoke very little about her past.

"A car accident? Was Tess with them when it happened?" Liz asked, keeping her voice low. Michael and Isabel turned away and started their own conversation, unconcerned with Max's story having already heard it from Tess a few times before.

Max shook his head. "No, she was at home with a babysitter. Apparently the car went over an overpass. It was a rainy night, the roads were slippery…"

"That must have been so hard for her," Liz murmured, feeling an unexpected wave of sympathy for the petite blonde.

Max nodded. "It probably was. She never really spoke about it, so I don't know any of the specific details."

"How did she end in Roswell?" Liz asked, crossing her legs and leaning against Max's arm. "With the Sheriff? Doesn't Social Services generally not want single fathers to adopt? Kyle's mother had already bailed at that point."

Max wrapped his arm around Liz's shoulders and explained, "It was supposed to be temporary. The L.A. foster care system is known for being overbooked and understaffed, and Valenti had been roommates with Andrew Harding when they both attended San Jose State."

"Really?" Liz asked, intrigued. Was it all a mesh of interwoven coincidences that had brought Tess to Roswell? What if the Hardings hadn't died? What if Valenti and Andrew Harding hadn't been roommates? Would Tess be living somewhere in L.A., completely oblivious to the existence of the rest of her family?

"Yeah. Valenti took Tess for the time being, just to get her out of that system. He probably figured Andrew wouldn't have wanted his daughter to end up in that…" Unbidden, the thought of Hank Guerin came to mind, and Max unconsciously clenched his fists, wishing that someone had cared enough about Michael to remove him from foster care as well.

"And what was supposed to be temporary ended up as permanent?" Liz finished when Max lapsed into silence. "Why?"

Max shrugged. "No idea. You'd have to ask Valenti why he ended up adopting her."

"Lucky for you three," Liz commented.

"Lucky for Tess too," Max agreed.

"Quite the coincidence," Liz whispered. Next to her, Max stiffened slightly and looked down at her, his eyes unreadable. Finally, he nodded in assent and looked away, staring off into the distance, his mind on other thoughts.

And Liz was left with the distinct impression that there was more to the story than Max had revealed.

* * *

At the end of the hallway, a doctor with black hair and yellow eyes watched the group of teenagers and adults milling about in the hall. The doctor's eyes scanned each person, as though searching for something, then finally landed on Max. A pleased expression slid onto the man's face, and he studied the dark-haired alien with single-minded intensity. 

"King Zan of Antar," he murmured. "It is a pleasure to see you at last."

* * *

Next Chapter: Endless Night 

Due: Friday 2/3


	19. Endless Night

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: This chapter is kind of long, but it also has a lot of important...moments...in it. So if you can, please try to read it carefully, because some things may be important later on.

Also, I know I've said this before, but I'm going to say it again, because it is important. So if this is repetitive for you, I apologize. In my story, Nasedo has yellow eyes, and when he shifts forms, his eyes either retain their yellow color, or have a yellow tinge. So any time in the story that I refer to someone with yellow or yellowish eyes, chances are, it is Nasedo. Remember that.

* * *

Chapter Eighteen: Endless Night

"Maria DeLuca," Dr. Drake said, walking out of Amy's room and breaking the tense silence in the hallway, "Your mother is stable, and we believe she will wake in the next several hours. Once she does, we'll be able to better determine the extent of her injuries."

Maria sagged with relief, falling against the wall. "Oh, thank God," she murmured, closing her eyes as tears of joy slipped out from under her lids. "Can I see her?"

Drake nodded. "Only for a little bit though. Even though she is still unconscious, her subconscious may be able to sense the presence of a loved one. It could help her to know that you are there, but at the same time, if you are there too long, it may wear her out."

"I'll only stay for a few minutes," Maria agreed, slipping past the doctor and into the room.

Liz and Alex exchanged looks and then crept to the door of the room, but did not enter. Several hours had passed since Amy had been admitted to the hospital. Mr. and Mrs. Parker had left, along with Tess, Kyle, and Isabel. Valenti remained behind, pacing the hallway with a drawn face. Max stayed to give Liz moral support, and Michael stayed for reasons only he seemed to understand.

Liz stared at the woman on the bed, her mouth slightly parted in horror. Amy was pale, her eyes closed, her hair falling over her face in a mess. Wires and I.V. tubes crisscrossed along her body, attached to machines that gave off flashing lights and humming noises. She seemed so frail, so close to death, and only the steady rise and fall of her chest gave away the fact that she was still alive.

Maria took a seat on a chair next to the bed. She reached forward and placed her hand gently on top of her mother's, tears pricking at her eyes. "Mom? I'm here, Mom. Can you hear me?" she whispered, knowing she wasn't going to get a response.

Max walked to Liz's side and slipped his hand around hers, giving her a gentle squeeze. She sent him a hesitant smile, her eyes darkening with worry and concern. Behind Max, Valenti approached the room. He pushed past the three teens at the door and took a few reluctant steps into the room. His face paled as he looked down at Amy, and he leaned against the wall to support himself as the strength in his legs all but gave out. Michael joined the others at the doorway, and they all stared silently at the injured woman and her daughter.

* * *

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I don't quite understand why you are here," Drake said, frowning at the woman in front of him. He leaned against the receptionists desk, taking in the tall woman's expensive black dress suit and determined gaze. 

Ms. Topolski smiled kindly. "Of course," she said. "I haven't explained properly." She reached into her coat and pulled out her FBI badge. She held it forward, displaying it to the doctor, then continued, "Is there perhaps a place would could talk in private?"

Drake stared at the badge, his eyes widening. "Of course," he said quietly. "Come on, my office is just down the hall." He gestured for Ms. Topolski to follow, then set off at a brief pace. Once he reached his office, he pulled the door open and stepped aside to allow the FBI agent to enter.

Ms. Topolski settled herself into a seat and tapped her fingers against the wood desk. She watched as Drake took a seat behind the desk and gestured for her to start talking.

"My name, Dr. Drake, is Julia Topolski."

"And you work for the FBI?" Drake asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose tiredly.

"Yes," Ms. Topolski answered crisply. "And I would like to ask you some questions about a Ms. Amy DeLuca."

"Well, I'm going to need a court order releasing her medical records to you," Drake answered automatically. He couldn't possible understand why the FBI would be interested in a simple car crash, albeit an almost fatal one, but there were certain laws and protocols that he knew he had to follow, and one of them was doctor-patient privilege.

"Oh, I'm not interested in her medical records," Ms. Topolski said casually, waving the comment away. "But I would like to know who brought her in."

Drake sighed. That information he could give without breaking any laws. "A crowd grew around the sight of the accident. I assume one of the people there called an ambulance. The ambulance brought her in."

"What happened exactly in the accident?"

Drake frowned. "Wouldn't it be better if you asked an eye-witness?"

Ms. Topolski raised an eyebrow. "I'm asking _you_."

Drake tensed. Something about this woman put him on edge. She was used to being in control, to asking questions and getting immediate answers. "A car and a truck crashed at the corner of Main Street, a few blocks from Roswell High School. The truck driver managed to get out okay, but the car went up in flames."

"How did Ms. DeLuca survive?" Ms. Topolski pressed, crossing one leg over the other and folding her hands in her lap.

"A boy, Michael Guerin, pulled her out of the car before it exploded. Burnt his hand in the process, but he managed to completely tear the door off of its hinges," Drake replied.

Ms. Topolski raised an eyebrow at that, then nodded and smiled. "Quite the feat," she said softly, in a tone that made Drake look up at her sharply.

* * *

"Hey, Maria," Liz said softly, taking a seat next to Maria by the bed. "Max and I were going to catch a movie tonight. Do you want to come, maybe get your mind off of all this?" She gestured to Amy's still form. 

Maria shook her head. "Thanks, but I don't want to be a third wheel," she answered hoarsely. "I'm just going to stay here until Dr. Drake tells me I have to go, and then maybe go home."

"And be by yourself?" Alex asked from the doorway. "I don't know if that is a good idea. Do you want me to come over?"

Maria gave him a watery smile. "Thanks, but I'll be fine." She stood up slowly, stretching her tired muscles. "I'm just going to hang around a bit to talk to the doctor again. Why don't you guys go home?"

"I don't know…" Liz protested.

"Go," Maria repeated firmly. She swallowed and continued, "I'd like some time alone with my Mom also."

"Oh, sure," Liz agreed instantly. She and Max slipped out of the room. Alex gave Maria's shoulder a squeeze, and he followed Max and Liz.

Valenti stared at Amy for a long moment, then stepped forward and gave Amy's forehead a kiss. Maria and Michael both raised eyebrows, it was the first time they had ever seen him show emotion like that. But Valenti didn't even meet their eyes, he walked from the room, his face stony and cold. Michael was the last to depart, holding Maria's gaze for a beat before leaving.

Maria turned back to her mother and let her brave face fall away, revealing the terrified girl beneath. "Mommy," she whispered, clutching her mother's frail hand. "Please wake up. Please be okay." She sniffled a little, then wiped away a tear with her free hand. But another tear followed, and then another, until she was sobbing unrestrainedly.

She didn't know what to do, how to deal with this. As far back as she could remember, it had been her mother taking care of her, paying the bills, setting the rules, cooking the absolutely inedible dinners, attending her school plays, and driving her to singing lessons. Maria knew that, somewhere out there, there was someone else who was supposed to care about her. But he had left her, had left both of them, a long time ago, and as far as she knew, he had never looked back.

Anger coursed through her, white hot anger for the person who had was supposed to love her unconditionally, and had turned his back on her and her mother. They had been married once, her mother and father. Had the wedding vows meant so little to him? Had _she _meant so little to him?

The sound of an unnatural buzzing filled the air, jerking her from her angry thoughts, and Maria looked around in surprise. Footsteps pounded in the hall, and two nurses appeared, followed almost immediately by Drake and another man. The man placed a hand on Maria's arm and gently but firmly pulled her from the room. She allowed herself to be dragged away, staring uncomprehendingly about at all the chaos that had suddenly filled the room. And then she realized it, with startling clarity.

Her mother had flat-lined.

She was at the door when she understood what had happened, and instantly dug her heels into the ground, crying out in fear and panic, "Mom!"

Drake turned to look at her, sympathy in his eyes, before he looked over her head at the other man. "Get her out of here!" he ordered brusquely, turning back to his patient.

"You said she had stabilized!" Maria cried. "You said she was going to be okay. What is happening to her? Why won't you let me stay?" She was nearly hysterical by the time the second man had managed to force her out of the room, shutting the door with a snap behind them.

"Ms. DeLuca, please try to remain calm…"

"Remain calm?" Maria asked, laughing bitterly, hysterically, between her tears. "My mother in _dying_!"

"Dr. Drake is going to do everything he can for her," the man continued in his annoyingly collected tone, his warm brown eyes fixed on her with gentle understanding. "Sometimes trauma patients flat-line unexpectedly, but their hearts can be…restarted, if you will."

"B-but… she's so…hurt…" Maria gasped out, her tears finally subsiding as she took in everything the man had said.

"I know," the man commiserated. "Perhaps it would be best if you went home? Or to a friend's house? Leave a phone number for us to contact you, and we will call you as soon as there is a change."

"I want to stay with her," Maria protested.

"I'm sorry, but official visiting time ended several hours ago. Besides, I don't know how long Dr. Drake will want to keep her under strict observation, so you may not even be able to see her until tomorrow anyway."

Maria nodded dumbly, reaching into her purse and extracting a piece of paper and a pen. She jotted down her cell phone number and handed it to the man, then turned to go. He followed, observing her with hawk-like eyes, as though afraid that she would go crazy or have a nervous breakdown. He escorted her all the way to the door, and watched as she walked out into the night. Then he turned and looked back at the waiting room.

The receptionist looked up at him for a moment, and he gave her a smile. She frowned slightly, and tilted her head to one side, her eyes traveling over his face.

"Everything alright?" he asked the receptionist pleasantly as he drew near to her desk.

"Of course, Dr. Greene," the receptionist replied with a curt nod. She glanced in the direction Maria had gone. "She left, then?"

"Yes," Greene replied. "She said that staying here was too stressful, but that we were to contact her if there was a change." He pressed Maria's phone number into her open palm and smiled again, a smile that seemed just a little off. The receptionist nodded, apprehension traveling over her features.

"Are you sure everything is alright?" Greene pressed, pushing a strand of dark hair out of his eyes.

"Y-yes," the receptionist faltered. "You just…you seem different somehow. I think…I think it is something about your eyes." She shrugged apologetically, suddenly realizing how bizarre her comment had sounded, and looked down at her desk.

"Do I?" Greene asked in a mildly interested tone. He frowned at her for a moment, but when she said nothing, he did not press the issue. Instead he turned and walked past her. At the end of the hallway, he pulled off his doctor's coat and name tag, and tossed them on the back of a conviniently located chair, the white lab coat falling partially over a medical file folder that had been placed on the seat. From behind the chair, he pulled out a dark cloak with a hood, and draped it over his lanky form.

He straightened and looked around, noting that the hall was empty. Then he rolled his tense shoulders and yawned. He glanced down at the medical file, reading the words printed at the top of the folder.

Amy DeLuca.

He picked up the file and smiled to himself. It was one piece of information, although not nearly enough to complete his goal. But this woman was obviously important to the Royal Four, or else they would not have all shown up when she was hospitalized. Perhaps he would be able to glean something from the file, something worth knowing. He had to find a way to ingratiate himself into the Royal Four, make them trust him.

No, not trust. It did not matter if they trusted him. He had to make them _need_ him. He had to make himself indispensible.

He walked towards the exit sign in front of him, pausing once at the doorway to see if he was observed. But the hallway was empty save for two doctors a tall woman with blonde hair just emerging from Drake's office.

He smiled to himself and stepped outside, closing the door behind him. He walked down the empty street, his eyes roaming over everything, taking in every detail as though he was afraid of being watched, being followed.

And as he looked around, his brown eyes flickered yellow.

* * *

Max squinted through the dim light of the movie theater, trying to find a good seat. It was packed, almost every teenager in all of Roswell had apparently decided to come to this movie showing. He squeezed past a group of juniors who he vaguely recognized and settled himself into a seat close to the middle. Draping his coat over the seat next to him, he twisted in his chair and looked around for Liz. She had paused in the lobby to call Maria and check in one last time, sending Max ahead to get the seats. 

A moment later, Liz wandered into the theater and looked around until she spotted him. Smiling, she squeezed through the row to the seat next to him and whispered, "Maria's on her way home. She doesn't sound too good, I think she's really freaked out, but she won't talk about it."

"Is it a good idea for her to be by herself?" Max asked, worried.

"I called Alex and he is going to hang out with her tonight," Liz murmured back. "I don't know what's going to happen now, though. I mean, with her mother in the hospital, she can't just stay home by herself…"

"The Sheriff will take care of it," Max replied assuredly, although he had to admit he had no idea _how_ Valenti would manage it.

"Is there anywhere else?" a male voice asked loudly, cutting through the conversation.

Max and Liz turned to find Trudy and Kyle standing at the end of their row, looking around the crowded theater.

"I don't think so," Trudy murmured in a softer tone. She glanced back at Max and Liz, an unreadable expression on her face, then smiled apologetically at Kyle.

It took a moment for Liz to realize what they were talking about, then she noted that the only two seats available in the entire theater happened to be the one right next to her and Max. She winced inwardly, knowing this was going to be awkward, and watched in silence as Trudy and Kyle slipped past them and into the vacant seats.

Max put his arm around Liz and gave her a warm smile, and she leaned her head against his shoulder. Kyle glared openly at them, ignoring Trudy's attempts to get his attention. Trudy finally seemed to give up in exasperation and leaned back against her own seat, her expression grim.

As the previews started on the screen, and the four settled back into their seats, Liz thought fleetingly that this was going to be a long night.

* * *

Isabel ran a hand through her blonde hair, styling the straight strands into tight curls. Not liking the look, she ran her hand over her head and changed the curls into long romantic waves that cascaded over her face and tumbled around her shoulders. She turned and walked over to her closet, pulling out a black knee-length skirt and a red halter top. Changing into them, she admired her reflection in the mirror. 

Nothing quite like a dateless Friday night in this sleepy little town to remind a girl of that fact that she has no boyfriend.

Isabel reached for the phone and dialed a number, listening to the rings on the end. When Michael's voice answered, she smiled cheerfully and said, "Hey, Michael. What are you up to tonight?"

There was a slight pause, then Michael replied bluntly, "I'm breaking into Valenti's office."

"Wh-what?" Isabel stammered, thrown for a loop. Whatever it was she had expected Michael to say, that was not it. "You are what? Why would you do that?"

"I'm breaking into Valenti's office," Michael repeated. "And I am doing it to see if there is any information in their about Hannigan." He said it impatiently, almost as if he expected Isabel to know the answer.

Isabel frowned, confused. "Oh…okay. Be careful, I guess. And, uh, thanks. For checking into Hannigan, I mean." She cursed silently, wondering why her mouth was saying the things it was. Normally she would tell Michael he was being crazy on not to do something so stupid and now all she was saying was 'be careful?'

"Oh…no problem," Michael replied. "What were you calling about?"

"I just…wanted to see if you wanted to hang out tonight. You know," Isabel continued, "two dateless people on a Friday evening." They had done that a lot in the past, hanging out together on a Friday or Saturday night while everyone went off on dates. Sometimes Max had joined her if Michael had plans, or it was just the two boys who got together on the rare occasions that she had a date or some prior engagement.

"Oh…well…you should check with Max," Michael said hesitantly, as though he too suddenly recognized the clumsiness of the conversation. There was a pause, long and drawn out, then Michael continued, "Why don't you see what Alex is doing tonight?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself, and as soon as he said them, he could have kicked himself.

Isabel paused, surprised yet again by Michael's words. "Right…" The conversation was starting to grate on her nerves, as though there was something wrong with it, she just wasn't sure what. "I think he is hanging out with Maria tonight, to make sure she is okay." She wasn't sure what bothered her more, the fact that she knew what Alex was doing, or the abrupt silence at the other end of the line, as though Michael had stopped breathing.

"Oh, okay," Michael said at last. "Well, I've got to go, Izzy." And he hung up.

Isabel closed her eyes, picturing the jealous look on Michael's face earlier today as he watched Alex comforting Maria. She stared at the phone in her hands, feeling a sudden sadness she could not quite place.

Max was with Liz, _always_ with Liz. And somehow, at that moment, Isabel knew that she was loosing Michael as well.

Maybe it was time to start looking for the new identity she always wanted, the one separate from her family and her alien past.

* * *

Michael glanced around the empty street for a moment, watching for any sign of movement from the shadows. Deciding that he was alone, he turned and looked at the building in front of him. The best way to break in, he decided, would be through the window in the back, because there was less a chance of being seen. 

"What are you doing?"

Michael spun around in complete shock and stared at the blonde in front of him. "Maria?" he demanded. "What are you doing here?" She had seemed to appear out of nowhere, although he knew she had probably just turned the corner of the street when he was facing the other way.

"I was walking home from the hospital," Maria snapped back, surprisingly annoyed at being questioned. "They made me leave." Her voice had an odd quality to it, one filled with anger and relief, fear and hesitation. "What are you doing?"

Michael paused, unsure of what to do, then opted for the truth. "I'm breaking into Valenti's office," he said simply, as though it were a normal, everyday activity.

Maria blinked. She frowned slightly, her heart beating. She didn't want to go home. Alex would be there in a few minutes, she knew that. He would want to comfort her and here how everything went and talk about her mother. But she didn't want to talk, and she most certainly did not want to think about what had just happened, about the buzzing sound of the flat-line that she knew would haunt her dreams for years to come. She had done that enough already today. So she did something so strange, so entirely out of character, that it caught even her by surprise.

"Can I come with you?"

* * *

Isabel pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders and sighed, rubbing her tired eyes as she made her way slowly through the streets. She didn't know where she was, she didn't know where she was going, but she could feel that there was something out there, something she needed to see, needed to find. She couldn't explain, so she just kept walking. 

The wind whipped around her, blowing blonde strands into her eyes. She swatted them impatiently out of the way and pressed her lips together in frustrated disapproval. Something made her turn the corner and she found herself suddenly standing in front of the old abandoned UFO center. One of the many tourist attraction in the early nineties, it had been forced to close down when the owner was accused of embezzlement and fraud. Since then, several managers had come and gone, trying to open the center only to be met with financial crisis and bankruptcy. It was a business owner's worst nightmare, a building that refused to sell.

Isabel walked closer, eyeing the stone building and metal doors. It was set in a nice section of town, next to some new shops and boutiques that had opened up last summer. It should have been hot property, if it wasn't for its checkered past.

A noise caught her attention, and the blonde alien crept closer, sneaking to the entrance of a back alleyway. She peeked around the corner and frowned in confusion at the sight in front of her. A man stood with his back to her, a brown coat falling over blue jeans and white-tennis shoes. In front of him, dressed entirely in black, was a man who sent shivers down Isabel's spine. He was tall, dark hair falling over yellow eyes and sweaty skin. And something about him just seemed so…_off_.

The first man raised his hands and tried to back away, mumbling, "Hey, man… I didn't realize I was in your alley…" He stumbled over a discarded soda can and barely managed to stay upright.

The second man approached, hissing strange noises. He lifted a hand and pressed it against the other man's chest, and the man fell to the ground without a word. Then the second man tilted his head to one side and smiled coldly, and changed shape.

Isabel blinked in surprise, her heart stopping in her chest. The man had just…become someone else. How was that…how was that even…how did he…? She couldn't put her thoughts in order, couldn't find the right words, couldn't even begin to comprehend what she had seen. In a sudden flash of realization, she knew exactly what Liz had felt when she looked down at her newly healed stomach and saw what Max had done.

Indescribable, confusing, awe-inspiring fear.

And then she let her eyes travel down to the man on the ground, and a scream escaped from her lips. It was quiet and short, but it was enough to get the other alien's attention, and he looked up quickly, his eyes falling on the previously unseen blonde.

Isabel stumbled backwards, unable to tear her eyes away from the dead man's chest. There, glowing slightly from beneath his torn white shirt, was the outline of a silver handprint. She saw it, but overlapped with it she saw something else. A memory of a story she had heard and dismissed, a vision of someone else's nightmare, an image of the past.

But this was not just an image. The handprint was real.

She turned and ran. She ran until her lungs ached and her feet wouldn't carry her any farther, until she could barely stand upright. She ran until she didn't notice the tears that slipped from her eyes, until she had no idea where she was. She ran until the streets blended together, then she sunk to the curb, exhausted and terrified.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone, then dialed Tess' number. The phone rang a few time, then a sharp voice answered, "What?"

"Tess…I just saw a shape-shifter," Isabel gasped out. There was a silence from the other end of the line, and Isabel knew that Tess was trying to figure out whether or not to dismiss this as another one of Isabel's hysterical moments. The statuesque alien pushed on, uttering the five words she knew would keep Tess' interest. "I saw a silver handprint."

"On a body?" Tess breathed. "Someone was dead?"

"Yes, but Tess, it was more than that. The handprint showed up when the shape-shifter killed the guy."

A silence met those words. A tense silence, filled with past horrors. Then Tess' voice came, calm and collected, but underlined with a thin wisp of panic, "Isabel, get away from there _now_!"

* * *

"So, what exactly are we looking for?" Maria asked as she rifled through the contents of one file cabinet drawer. "And are you sure they don't have security camera's here?" 

"They don't," Michael answered in exasperation. It was the third time Maria had asked him that. "But they do have an alarm, so we need to be careful not to set it off. Just stay away from the windows, except for the one I disabled the alarm on."

"Right." Maria smiled suddenly and said, "I feel so very Charlie's Angels."

"Yeah, well, just don't tell your Mom what you're doing right now," Michael replied, then mentally slapped himself. The last thing Maria needed right now was to be reminded of her mother.

Maria lapsed into silence. She glanced over at Michael, who was reading the Sheriff's report on Hannigan's death. Looking down at her own hands, she sighed. No matter where she went or what she did, she couldn't escape what had happened.

Her mother was in the hospital.

Michael slanted a look at Maria, then turned back to the papers in his hand. There did not appear to be anything there, but some sixth sense was telling him not to give up, that clues were hidden in between the lines if he could just find them.

"Anything in that?" Maria asked, yawning.

"Yes," Michael said shortly. "I just have to find it."

Maria blinked but made no comment at the strange remark. She sifted through a pile of paper stacked on top of the filing cabinet. The two fell into an uneasy silence.

"Are you sure that there aren't _hidden_ security cameras?" Maria questioned at last, breaking the quiet.

Michael rolled his eyes and snapped, "Yes! But if you are so worried about it, why don't you leave? I didn't ask you to come!" He slammed the report about Hannigan down onto the desk, frustrated that he couldn't seem to find the answers he knew it held.

Maria seemed slightly taken aback. "Sorry," she shot back, finding her voice as anger filled her. "I'm just having a stressful day, alright? You know, having my mother almost _die_! And now I have to figure out how to deal with everything, how to pay medical bills, how to take care of myself and deal with the house and mortgage and…and…" She drew a sharp breath, trying her level best to control her emotions. Her temper was out of control, hysteria seemed to linger just below the surface, ready to break through at any moment, and panic tightened her chest.

"Why can't you call your father?" Michael asked disinterestedly, turning to another file cabinet. "Maybe he'll come back."

Maria shrugged and peered through the dim light at the desk. "My dad's not really a factor my life," she said slowly, trying to keep her tone light. She sorted through a pile of papers, searching for anything remotely alien related. "He left a long time ago," she continued in a voice barely above a whisper.

Michael thought of Hank and how much he wished his foster father had just walked out on him a long time ago as well. He said nothing, simply continued looking. He noted with interest that Valenti had truly given up the alien hunt, he had seen nothing related to the shooting. Tess' mind-warp must have worked. But then he remembered what she had said, that something could trigger a relapse, that it was possible to break out of a mind-warp, and he couldn't help but wonder silently how long the lack of alien-related cases would last.

But Maria was so lost in her own thoughts that she did not notice his silence. "I don't want to see him. I've never even met the guy, I don't want him to suddenly reappear in my life."

Michael nodded, understanding. "He was never there for you before, you don't want him to be now," he murmured, surprised to find that he empathized with how the blonde human felt. It was a feeling he himself had often gotten, the feeling of being unwanted.

Maria gave Michael and odd look and nodded slowly. "Yeah, I guess…" She drew a breath and looked back at the desk. "I just…wanted to say…that, um… I, uh, I…" she muttered hesitantly, unsure of how to say exactly what it was she meant. Drawing another breath, she turned to Michael and continued a little more bravely, "I wanted to…to tell you that I was…thankful…for what you did…for my mother."

There was a dead silence for perhaps a minute, then Michael said simply, "You're welcome."

He took a step closer to her, and Maria suddenly realized she could hear his breathing. He was leaning in, looking at her face as though he had never seen anything quite like it before. The silence between them was filled with unspoken emotions, like a spell that had descended upon them without warning. She felt herself take an involuntary step towards him, slowly rising up onto the balls of her feet so that she was closer to his height. There faces were only a few inches apart, and she leaned in, closing her eyes and waiting…

A sudden blaring noise ripped through the air, startling the two, and they quickly jumped away from each other, the momentary spell broken. Michael looked around, realizing that they must have set off the alarm. Shoving the Hannigan report back into the file cabinet, he hurried to the window. "Come on!" he hissed. "Let's go."

The moment had passed, and Maria shook her head to clear her confused and troubled thoughts as she followed Michael out of the window and onto the street. She watched as the hybrid locked the window with his powers, then the two of them hurried away, disappearing into the night only moments before the sheriff's men arrived to check the blaring alarm.

* * *

Max and Liz left the movie theater, hand in hand, and walked out into the cool night air. Behind them, a seething Kyle and a disgruntled Trudy watched them leave in silence. Max had kept his arm wrapped tightly around Liz through the entire movie, every now and then pulling her closer to him or leaning over to whisper something that always elicited a giggle from the brunette. Kyle had not missed any of this, and Trudy had not missed the way her boyfriend clenched and unclenched his fists every few minutes. 

"Kyle? I need to talk to you about something," Trudy said abruptly, turning to the football jock. Kyle glanced at her, as though surprised that she was still standing next to him, and Trudy swallowed back her fear and nervousness and plowed on. "It's about us."

"What about us?" Kyle asked, leading Trudy towards the parking lot.

Trudy glanced around the parking lot and wondered whether or not this was the right place for this conversation. But it was a conversation that needed to be had, and the sooner the better. She could no longer close her eyes and pretend that she did not see the way Kyle looked at Liz.

"I think we should break up." The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, and by the confused look that leapt into Kyle's eyes, she knew he hadn't seen it coming.

"Wh-what?" Kyle asked, surprised. "Why?"

Trudy gave a dark chuckle. "Because you couldn't tear your eyes off of Liz tonight, Kyle. Do you even know what the movie was about?" She paused, and when Kyle was unable to provide an adequate answer, she raised an eyebrow pointedly. "See?" she pressed.

"But…I don't want to be with Liz," Kyle replied flustered. "I want to be with you."

"Are you sure?" Trudy asked. "Because from my point of view, you still haven't let go of what happened, of the way Liz broke up with you. And I don't want to be the rebound girl."

"You aren't!" Kyle protested. "And you are the one who wanted me to talk to Liz. You gave me that whole lecture the other day when I used your words instead of my own."

Trudy rolled her eyes. "I was trying to be supportive, Kyle. I didn't actually want…I didn't want you to obsess over her. I just…I wanted you to put it all behind you…and…you know, move on." She stopped and closed her eyes, thinking. After a moment, she opened them and said, "Look, it's obvious that you still care about the girl. And I care about you. A lot. So come and find me when you're ready to move on, chances are I'll still be waiting. But I won't date a guy who's still pining for someone else." She turned and walked away, leaving a befuddled Kyle standing alone by his car.

* * *

"Report," Pierce ordered, holding the phone against his ear. 

From the other end of the line, he heard Topolski's voice, calm and collected, answer with her usual professional efficiency, "Michael Guerin may be a lead for us, sir. Trudy McIntire most certainly is. I have been unable to pursue anything on the Max Evans and Liz Parker front, they are guarding themselves well. But that only says more clearly that they have something to hide."

"Continue," Pierce commanded when Topolski stopped to take a breath.

"Trudy McIntire does not realize what she knows, so I believe she is still our best lead. She is confused and impressionable right now, and if my sources are correct, she broke up with her boyfriend tonight."

"And the Guerin boy?" Pierce asked, his voice filled with anticipation.

"Michael Guerin managed to pull the door of a car clear off of its hinges," Topolski replied, sounding smug. "He burned his hand, but refused to let the hospital take his blood, so I have been unable to get a sample of his DNA." Topolski paused for a moment, and Pierce could here the rustling of paper from her end of the phone line. Then she continued, "In fact, none of his medical records show a blood test ever being done. The same is true for Isabel and Maxwell Evans."

Pierce nodded, although he knew Topolski could not see the movement. It was unusual for someone to _never_ have a blood test. He contemplated this, then said, "And Tess Harding?"

Topolski frowned at the question. "There is very little correlation between Tess Harding and the others under suspect. She is friends with Trudy McIntire, but appears to have little or no relationship with Michael Guerin, or either of the Evans." Topolski paused again, remembering the girl with her guarded eyes and short answers. "But she does know how to keep a secret."

"More so than you realize," Pierce muttered, more to himself than Topolski. He got up and walked over to the fax machine next to his desk. As he punched in the fax number and placed the file on the feed tray, he asked, "And sign of other unusual activity?"

Ms. Topolski knew instantly that he was asking about the escapee from the white-room three weeks ago, and answered, "No, sir. No silver handprints have shown up here…yet. My recommendation is to proceed with caution to avoid raising suspicions, but to proceed quickly."

Pierce agreed, "Do it." As the fax machine hummed, coming to life, he turned and picked up the picture of the dead agent from the white room. He stared at it for a moment, tracing the silver handprint on the man's chest. It had faded after a few hours, but the picture showed it there, bright and eerie.

"I am sending you a report, Agent Topolski. Read it." Without another word, Pierce hung up the phone. Topolski would get information for him, he had no doubt of that. But with the escape of the prisoner from the white-room, the stakes had been raised.

Perhaps it was time that he visited Roswell himself.

* * *

In Roswell, Ms. Topolski's fax machine sprang to life, spitting out a copy of the report Pierce had sent. She reached for it with interest and stared at the first page. It was a picture of a dead agent with a glowing handprint on his chest. Although she had heard detailed reports of the break out from the white-room, this was the first time she had actually seen a picture, and it unnerved her. The man who had the power to do that, to kill without a weapon, had escaped. 

Setting the picture aside, Ms. Topolski flipped through the rest of the papers and nearly gasped in surprise. The file detailed the incident of another silver handprint, one from almost ten years ago. She had no idea that this had ever occurred before. She read through the report quickly, her mind spinning.

When these other two victims had died, the prisoner had still been in the white-room. Which meant that someone else had killed these people, someone who they knew nothing about. There were at least _two_ murderers with supernatural gifts out there, and she had to catch _both_ of them. She shook her head, suddenly appreciating the enormity of the task ahead of her.

She reviewed the details from the file yet again. It had been a rainy night and the car had gone over an overpass and crashed to the road below. The local officials had assumed that it was a simple car accident, and all the details did point that way.

Except for the silver handprint on the chests of both the victims…

The handprints had eventually faded, and the FBI had covered everything up. It was reported as a car accident, nothing more. The case had apparently been tossed onto Pierce's desk, but he had been unable to solve it, and eventually it was placed aside so that the Special Unit could deal with other, more pressing issues.

Topolski shook her head again as she realized how little she actually knew about the workings of the Special Unit. How had she never even heard a _rumor_ of this incident?

She glanced down at the name of the two victims and felt her heart momentarily stop beating and her breath catch in her throat.

Andrew and Jessica Harding.

* * *

Next Chapter: Silver Handprints 

Due: Friday 2/10


	20. Silver Handprints

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: The middle section of this chapter, the part that deals with Valenti's thoughts and Maria's father is left purposely vague. What exactly is going on in that part will be revealed in the chapter after this, although you are more than welcome to make guesses about it.Most of the psychology at the end of this chapter is taken directly from my psych class, so I don't own those theories either_. Italics _are flash backs.

Please read the author's note at the end of this chapter, it explains a little more about the car accidents in my stories.

And, as always, please read and review.

* * *

Chapter Nineteen: Silver Handprints

Max hung up the phone and glanced at the clock. The flashing numbers read 5:27. He blinked twice and rubbed his weary eyes, then walked slowly over to his bed, sinking into the cushions as his mind went over everything he had just heard.

The moment he had arrived home, Isabel had come barging into his room, and related her story with growing fright. He had first tried to calm down his nervous sister, then without even hesitating to think about the time, picked up the phone to call Tess.

She sounded alert when she answered the phone, alert and scared. It was hard to hear the fear in her voice, she was good at concealing it. But it was there, as he knew it would be.

Silver handprints…

His next call had been to Michael, who had sounded oddly distracted as though he had other thoughts on his mind. At the mention of the shape-shifter, however, Michael had become more focused, although neither alien had an answer to their current set of problems.

Nobody knew exactly what the problems _were_.

There were too many questions, not enough answers, and even less time.

He sighed. Isabel was still awake, nervously pacing his room with pent up energy. He eyed her apprehensively, wondering if she would explode in anger of fear. But she kept her emotions locked tightly shut behind her calm mask, and only the deep lines etched around her eyes betrayed her inner turmoil.

"What about Liz, Maria, and Alex? What do we tell them?" Isabel asked, breaking into his thoughts.

"The truth," Max replied simply. "I'm going to call a meeting at the Crashdown. At a more decent hour."

"Tess is not going to be pleased," Isabel remarked dryly. She bit her lip and watched Max from the corner of her eye, wondering what he would do.

"I know," Max said simply. "And I will deal with that when the time comes. But whoever is out there, he is dangerous, and we can't _not_ tell the others." He frowned, remembering Liz's comment from two nights before. "It isn't the four of us and the three of them, it is the seven of us now," he continued, echoing her words. "Whether we like it or not, we're in this together."

* * *

It wasn't hard for Valenti to track the man down. There was the marriage license which had his name printed on it in stark black letters, tribute to the vows he had never upheld. Then it was just a matter of backtracking through the system, asking questions, following leads. That was the good thing about being a Sheriff, no one ever demanded a reason for the question before they offered answers. 

The man had left shortly before the birth of his daughter. He skipped states and ended up as a stock broker in New York. Several career changes and two apartments later, he had landed in Chicago, running a high profile nightclub and restaurant. That had held his attention for two years, and then he had skipped to Seattle, were Microsoft kept him employed until the technology depression hit, and he finally founded himself in Boston, working as a business consultant.

Valenti stared at the name and phone number in front of him. He drew an unsure breath, wondering if he should consult Maria first. She would be more than a little opposed to the idea, but it was necessary. Who else would pay the medical bills and take care of all the other financial arrangements?

He could do it. He would do it, in a heartbeat. But this man was Maria's _father_. And more than that...

Valenti pushed the thought away. It disturbed him greatly, but there was no point dwelling on it until he could confront Amy and demand an explanation. At first, he had not believed what he had seen, or rather, what he hadn't seen, and so he had searched high and low, through courthouse documents in several states and counties, but to no avail. The document simply did not exist.

Which complicated matters quite a bit.

Valenti dialed the phone number.

One ring, then another, then a third. Then Valenti hung up.

He couldn't do it, not right now, not until he talked to Maria, not until he was sure it was the _right_ thing to do.

Besides, he needed to see if Maria knew, or if her mother had kept her in the dark as well.

* * *

Maria was the first to arrive, her face worn and lined with exhaustion. She had almost not come, almost not wanted to hear whatever important and awful news the aliens had to report. But she had come, followed moments later by Liz, who gave Maria a small smile and a brief hug before taking a seat at one of the booths and waiting. Isabel and Max walked into the diner next, and Max made a bee-line form Liz, taking a seat next to her and glancing over at Maria. 

"How are you doing?" he whispered, knowing the words were trite and insignificant in the face of everything Maria was dealing with.

Maria shrugged and made no reply. There really was nothing to say.

Alex opened the door and walked into the room. He flopped into a seat across from Maria, watching her with concerned eyes. Behind the concern, Maria thought she detected a bit of annoyance, and she knew if she did, it was well deserved. Her search with Michael had taken almost the entire night, which meant that she had not shown up at her house as Alex had expected she would until closer to three in the morning. He had been waiting there when she arrived, panic etched into his face, relief flooding his eyes as he saw her,

"_Maria? Where were you? I've been scared out of my mind! I was about to call the Sheriff," Alex said, bounding down the steps and enveloping Maria in a hug. _

"_Sorry," Maria murmured. "I…I just…" She hesitated. It wasn't that she didn't want to tell Alex where she was, it was more like the words got caught in her throat and she couldn't force them out._

"_Are you alright? What happened?" Alex pressed, walking into the house with her._

_Maria nodded. "I just needed some time to think, Alex. I'm so sorry I didn't call and tell you to come later."_

_Alex shrugged. "That's alright," he said slowly, watching Maria with an unusually shrewd expression. It was as though he could tell she was lying, but he was not going to call her out on it. Not tonight, not so soon after…_

Maria shook her head and pushed away the memory.

Michael walked into the diner and took a seat next to Max. Maria tried in vain to catch his eye, but he looked determinedly in the other direction, and said nothing to the blonde human. Maria blinked at him, confused, and wondering what exactly had happened between them last night, and what that moment had meant. They had almost kissed, or had that just been her immagination.

Tess was the last to arrive, throwing her purse onto a chair and taking a seat next to Isabel. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Max with open hostility, her angry stare conveying her displeasure that the humans were there as well.

Max met her gaze and whispered, "We're in this together." Then he turned to the rest of the group and said quietly, "We think there is another alien in town."

A silence met his words, all eyes fixed on him in incredulous confusion. Maria, impatient as ever, broke the tense silence, and asked, "What do you mean? A good alien or an evil alien?"

It was Isabel who replied to the question, her voice filled with frustration and worry. "I'd guess a bad alien, although we know nothing about him." She glanced over at Tess, but the petite alien said nothing, so Isabel continued, "I saw him kill someone last night."

"How does she know it was an alien and not just some psycho homicidal maniac?" Maria questioned, turning her gaze to Isabel.

Isabel's voice was sharp when she answered. "He changed his shape, shifted so that he looked like someone else, then pressed his hand against the other guy's chest, and left a sliver handprint behind."

"A what?" Alex spoke up, leaning forward on the table, resting his chin in his palm.

"A silver handprint," Max repeated. Max, Michael, and Isabel exchanged a brief glance, then Max slanted a look at Tess. The petite alien was looking determinedly in the other direction, her hands clutched around the strap of her purse, her face set in still lines.

When she did not meet his gaze, Max continued, "And this isn't the first instance of a silver handprint."

Tess turned harshly to look at Max, her eyes silently questioning him, silently threatening him. "Max, don't…"

He held her stare for a beat, but did not back down. "I have to. We all need to know," he argued back.

Tess raised her eyebrows. "Why?" she snapped, her voice harsher than she had intended. Cracks were appearing on her collected exterior, tiny fissures which opened and revealed the terrified girl beneath.

Liz saw the tension between the two and asked, "What's going on? What exactly is a silver handprint? What do you mean there were others?" She flicked her gaze to Tess. "And what do you not want us to know?"

"Nothing important," Tess dismissed the question was a casual wave of her hand.

"The other instance was several years ago," Max explained, getting up and pacing back and forth across the floor. The room was silent for a moment, each person listening to the sound of Max's shoes on the tiles. "It was pretty well covered up, either by the FBI or by aliens. We aren't entirely sure which." He stopped pacing and turned to Liz. "The silver handprint… we think it shows up when an alien uses their powers to kill someone."

"How? Why?" Alex pressed.

"Maybe some freak just decided to paint a silver handprint onto his victims' chest. You know, put paint on his own hand then press it against his victim after the other guy is already dead," Maria suggested. She glanced back and forth between the three aliens and said, "This other instance you were talking about, what makes you think it is related to this? How do you even know about it if it was covered up?"

"It is too much of a coincidence otherwise," Michael said gruffly. He rubbed his eyes and leaned back in the seat. "Has to be related." He glanced over at Tess and said, "Might not be the same alien, though…"

"Maybe not," Tess agreed quietly. "Although that means there are at least two murdering aliens out there, which really doesn't make me feel better." She looked over at Max, then down at her own hands.

"Would you please explain what you are talking about?" Maria hissed through clenched teeth, angry at being out of the loop.

But Liz knew. She saw the brief, apprehensive look that flickered through Max's eyes, she saw the way the four aliens kept glancing at each other, she heard the hesitation in their voices. And she had a pretty good guess at what it meant.

"It was the Hardings, wasn't it?" she asked softly, fixing her brown eyes on Tess. "Your foster parents didn't die in a car crash."

A deafening silence met her words, then Tess tilted her head to one side and observed Liz coolly. "How do you know about the Andrew and Jessica?" she asked, her voice filled with censure.

"Max told me," Liz replied honestly, not realizing it was probably the wrong thing to say.

Tess spun around to face Max. She stood slowly, her body shaking, but whether it was from pent up fury or fear Max had no idea. But he saw the shaking, and he knew she was dangerously close to loosing her self control. Not that he could blame her, if he were in her place, he would have had a nervous break down by now. But all seven of them needed to know what was going on, and he had hoped that Tess would understand that.

She didn't.

Or if she did, the understanding was buried so far beneath layers of resentment and unease that she was unable to show it.

Michael stood up and touched Tess on the arm, and she turned to look at him. He jerked his head and took a few steps away from the group, and Tess reluctantly followed. Once the two of them were out of earshot, Michael began talking to her in hushed whispers. Max watched the two with apprehensive eyes, then turned back to the others.

"Max? What happened?" Alex asked, tearing his eyes away from Tess. "Her parents…what happened to them?"

Max replied in a quiet voice, "It was covered up. They didn't print the truth in the papers. No one knew about the silver handprint." He closed his eyes and leaned on the table. "The car was so mangled they had to tear it apart to get Andrew and Jessica out. The police thought they had to have been going sixty miles an hour when they went over the overpass."

Another silence met those words, then Maria asked, "But how could they be driving if they had already been killed?"

Max and Isabel exchanged a dark look, then Max answered, "Exactly." He got up and started pacing again. "As far as we can tell, they were killed, put into the car, and then the car was thrown off the overpass."

"Whoever did that has to have a lot of power," Maria said slowly, unnaturally solemn.

"And the ability to kill without remorse," Isabel added. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself and continued, "Which means he is one serious threat."

Maria frowned, unnerved by the revelation that their were enemy aliens out there. She had always assumed that the Roswell four were the only ones. Turned out she was wrong.

Alex, however, had latched on to a different detail of Max's explanation. "How did you know about the silver handprint? If it was covered up by the FBI or aliens or someone?"

"Tess," Max replied simply. "She had a vision of the Hardings right before they died. Saw the handprint on their chests."

"How do you know it wasn't just a dream?" Maria asked skeptically.

Max didn't answer, so Isabel replied, "We all thought Tess was being melodramatic or paranoid. But after a while, we learned to trust that Tess knew the difference between her dreams and her visions." She frowned and glanced over at Michael, watching as he talked to Tess. "I know that Michael and I were still a little skeptical, even now. But this is the second time…"

"You what!"

All eyes turned at the sound of the exclamation. Tess was standing with her hands on her hips, both eyebrows raised, as she listened to Michael. Michael seemed suddenly ill at ease, shifting from one foot to the other.

"I…" Michael glanced over at Max, then shifted his gaze to Maria, then back to Tess. "I wanted to see if Isabel's feelings about this guy were actually true."

"So you broke into Jim's office? What if you had been caught? Are you out of your mind? Why didn't you tell me what you were doing? I could have gotten in for you and found whatever you wanted without raising as much suspicion!" Tess hissed back.

Michael rolled his eyes. "Because you didn't even tell us when you knew that Hannigan was dead! How was I suppose to know that you would even bother to look for anything?"

Tess reeled back as though she had been slapped. "Of course I would look," she retorted, her face flushed crimson with fury and embarrassment. "And I wouldn't break several state laws in the process!"

"You broke into Valenti's office?" Max asked, echoing Tess' words. He looked at Michael in complete surprise, forgetting that he was in the middle of explaining about the silver handprints.

"Yes," Michael answered defiantly, rolling his eyes at Max. "Maria and I…"

"Maria was with you?" Alex asked, his tone carrying an emotion Michael could not quite identify. Although the question had been directed to Michael, Alex's eyes were fixed on Maria, one eyebrow raised.

"Why didn't you tell me what you were going to do?" Max asked with quiet authority.

"Because you would have stopped me," Michael snapped, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Of course I would have. Isabel and I both would have told…"

"Isabel didn't have a problem with it," Michael interrupted.

"What? You knew?" Both Tess and Max swung around to face Isabel, identical expressions of annoyance and offense on their faces.

"I can't believe you!" Tess hissed. "Any of you!" Without another word, she turned and stormed out of the diner, slamming the door behind her with such force that the glass rattled in the windows.

"Nice job calming her down," Isabel remarked sarcastically. Michael rolled his eyes at her and followed Tess out of the Crashdown, intent of stopping her before she lost control and blew something up.

Max watched the two of them go, concern in his eyes. His heart went out to Tess, to everything she was going through right now. The girl had built an ice wall around her heart, afraid of letting people in, afraid to face the past. The past that was currently haunting them all, emerging in such a unexpected and overwhelming way.

He remembered all the times he had ever talked to Tess about the Hardings. They had not been long conversations, and more often than not Tess would switch the subject as soon as she could. He had told her, again and again, that it wasn't her fault. But, as Isabel had commented to him once, that line only worked in _Good Will Hunting_. And no matter what anyone said, the fact remained that the Hardings had been killed by aliens only a year after Tess was adopted, and what conclusion could anyone draw from that except that the Hardings were killed _because _Tess was adopted?

It wasn't Tess' fault. She _knew _that. But somethings are easy to know and almost impossible to accept.

"Why would Michael be able to calm her down?" Maria asked, turning confused eyes to Isabel. As far as she had ever been able to tell, no one could calm Tess down. Not when she was in high temper. Besides, wasn't it Max that Tess had the best relationship with? It certainly always seemed that way.

Isabel glanced over at Maria, wondering what to say, how to explain. There was no easy answer to give, no answer that would sum up everything that had ever happened between the two aliens. Finally, she settled for a simple, "They've got a connection."

"How?" Liz pressed.

"It's because of Hank Guerin," Alex explained. All eyes turned to him, and he quickly elaborated, "Both Tess and Michael have fairly significant family issues. Tess is living with the constant fear that her parents' death was her fault, and Michael, although he would probably never admit it, is living with the constant fear that Mr. Guerin's actions are his fault. It is common for people with those sort of problems to connect on a level above normal friendship, and even if they were to completely hate each other in every other aspect of their lives, they would recognize the connection in that aspect, and respect it."

"How do you know about Hank?" Isabel asked in a surprised and slightly suspicious tone.

Alex shrugged. "I've seen the guy around a couple times. Plus, I see the way you guys all look when you mention his name, it isn't hard to imagine that he is not the ideal father."

"We can't ever get Michael to leave him," Max muttered. "I've been trying to convince him for several years now, but..."

"Well, of course not," Alex replied, dismissing the idea with a casual wave. "There really aren't that many foster homes in Roswell, and if Michael gets removed from Hank's custody, where is he going to go? He'd probably get sent somewhere else, some other city, which he would never agree to, since you, Isabel, and Tess are really the only family he's got."

Liz stared at Alex for a long time, then remarked, "Ms. Topolski was right, you really _should _study psychology."

Alex looked at Liz and shrugged, deciding not to voice what he was thinking. That you really could learn a lot about people if you just _watched_. And since the beginning of all this, since Max had healed Liz, he had felt more and more like that was all he was. A watcher.

A buzzing ring interrupted the silence, and Maria yanked her phone out, flipping open the top and staring at the caller I.D. on the screen. "It's Valenti," she said, puzzled. "I wonder what he wants to talk to me about?"

* * *

Next Chapter: The Secrets We Keep 

Due: Friday 2/17

Author's Note: A few reviews have mentioned the similarity between Maria's mother's accident and the Hardings' deaths, so I wanted to clear it up. There is _no_ connection. Amy was in an accident, the Harding's were murdered. A few years ago, a friend of mine was killed by a drunk driver, so car accidents tend to show up in my stories.

On that note, if a friend of yours has had anything to drink, even one glass of wine, do _not_ let them get behind the wheel. And keep your eyes open when you are driving, remember that just because you aren't under the influence of alcohol, someone else in another car might be.


	21. The Secrets We Keep

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's Note: Wow, that last chapter got a lot more reader response than I was expecting. Thank you for all your comments about my friend, it was a very hard time for me. I have a request, though. If there are people reading this that are not avid Tess fans (you don't have to hate her, she just isn't your favorite character) could you leave a sentence or two review about how you feel about her actions? Especially at the end of this chapter and the next one. It is a bit hard to judge her character since most of my reviews about her are from people who I already know love her (not that I don't appreciate those reviews, because I do. A lot!), and I want to know what people think. The same then goes for people who are not avid Max fans. I don't know if there are any of those besides me, but if there are, if you are just impartial and don't love him or hate him, a bit of feedback about his character would be greatly appreciated. I'm trying to take them both certain places, but I can't tell if I'm getting their characters towards the places I want them to go towards...if that made any sense.

We've been learning about why people keep secrets in my psych class, so this chapter is a result of that.

* * *

Chapter Twenty: The Secrets We Keep

"Dr. Greene, can you get Amy DeLuca's medical chart for me?" Dr. Drake asked as he bent over his patient and listened to her shallow breathing.

Dr. Greene nodded absently. "Sure, where is the file?" he asked, watching as Drake straightened and turned to look at him.

"I gave it to you last night right before Ms. DeLuca flat-lined," Drake replied, surprised by the question. "You requested it, said Conway had wanted you on the case as well." At Dr. Greene's blank stare, Drake's eyebrow slanted together. "Don't you remember…?"

"I was in my office all night, Dr. Drake," Greene replied, shaking his head. "I only met with a few patients, none of whom were Ms. DeLuca." He licked dry lips and suggested, "Maybe you gave it to a nurse?"

"No," Drake replied, "I didn't. I remember…" He frowned, thinking about the night before. Dr. Greene had walked into his office and asked for the file. He remembered that, and he remembered taking the file from the cabinet and handing it over to the doctor.

He was sure of it.

"Well, I never asked for it," Dr. Greene replied. "We're overworked as it is, what with the two latest lay-offs and Conway would never put me a case that another doctor already has."

Drake nodded, knowing that was true. The hospital had been busy lately, and the chief of surgery was not likely to put to doctors on the same case. Not while there were still so many other people waiting for procedures.

But he _remembered_.

"Alright," Drake said at last. "Can you hunt around for the file, then? I gave it to someone last night, but I apparently don't remember who."

"I'll see what I can do," Dr. Greene replied, turning and walking away.

Drake watched him go, the image of Ms. Topolski's calculating eyes suddenly rising in his mind. First the FBI, now this…? What was going on? He turned and looked back at the half-open door of Amy's room. There was something here, some secret that was being played out just above his head. It unnerved him, being kept in the dark, and he silently vowed to figure out what it was all about.

* * *

"Aren't they just adorable?" Mrs. Evans murmured, her eyes filling with sentimental tears. 

Mr. Evans glanced over at the television screen, and caught a brief glimpse of the home video his wife was watching before he rolled his eyes and turned back to his work. "How many times have you seen that particular one?" he asked good naturedly.

The video had been taken only a few months after Max and Isabel had been adopted. It showed the two children playing at the park, laughing and running around wildly. Isabel in particular seemed to grab at the spotlight, dancing in front of the camera with huge grins at every possibility. Max hung more in the back ground, his dark eyes watching his sister with what could only be described as amusement.

"Oh, but it's my favorite," Mrs. Evans explained. She shot an unreadable look at her husband, then asked, "Don't you ever just need to look back at everything?"

Mr. Evans stopped at the tone in Mrs. Evans voice and turned, his eyes confused, his expression serious. "Diane? Is something wrong?"

Mrs. Evans hesitated, then shrugged. "I don't know," she answered honestly. "I just… something is going on with Max and Isabel. I just wish I knew what it was." She ran a hand through her hair and looked back at the screen.

"What do you mean?"

Mrs. Evans shook her head, knowing she would be unable to explain the feeling. "Something is happening, changing. They are… they're just so…" She groaned in frustration, and shook her head. "I can't explain it, Philip."

Mr. Evans frowned slightly, eyebrows wrinkled in concern. "You see it also?" he asked. "The way things with Max and Izzy are so…"

"Complicated?" Mrs. Evans supplied. Mr. Evans nodded and she sighed. "Yes, I see it."

"You just have to trust them, Diane. Trust that whatever is going in, it isn't… it isn't _bad_." Mr. Evans got up and walked towards the door to the kitchen. "They'll tell us when they're ready."

Mrs. Evans turned back to the screen and said nothing. Because that was the problem. She didn't think they would tell her. Ever. It had been ten years since she had adopted them, given them a family and a home, and they still kept secrets. And she couldn't help but wonder what they were, and whether or not her children were in any kind of trouble.

On the screen, a young Max suddenly cried out for his mother as he leaned over an injured bird. He touched it with one finger, then rested the palm of his hand on the birds wing. A younger Mrs. Evans appeared on the screen, pulling her son away from the bird quickly and chastising him for touching unclean and possibly disease-ridden animals, while frantically checking his hand for any sign of a bite or scratch.

But the present Mrs. Evans was not watching her past self. Her eyes were on the bird, which a moment later flapped its wings and flew away, disappearing into the sky.

She had seen this video many times over the past years, and this was the part she always watched. She trusted her children, but sometimes she couldn't help but wonder what secrets they were hiding.

They would tell her eventually.

But what would happen if they got into trouble first?

* * *

"Maria, I understand how you feel about this, but…" 

"No," Maria cut the Sheriff off angrily, her eyes blazing. "No, you don't. You want to call my _father_!" She huffed and rolled her eyes, looking away. Why couldn't people just understand that he wasn't a factor in her life? She had never even met the guy.

"Yes, I do," Valenti replied wearily, realizing how daunting of a task it would be to convince Maria that this was for the best. "He is your father, and if anything happens to Amy…"

"She's going to be fine!" Maria snapped.

Valenti drew a breath and tried his best to be patient. "Who is going to pay the medical bills, Maria? Who is going to look after you while your mother is in the hospital? You are only sixteen, and you can't take care of yourself."

"Of course I can," Maria retorted, flushing with anger.

"Not legally," Valenti replied. "He is your father, he's your mother's husband. Maria, you _have_ to call him."

"He's my mother's _ex_-husband," Maria shot back, emphasizing ex. "She divorced the guy when he walked out on her, and we don't need him anymore. _I_ don't need him."

Valenti looked at Maria for a long time, searching her face for any sign that she realized what she had said was not true. But she seemed to believe every word, and that left Valenti disconcerted and apprehensive. He did not want to be the one to break the news to Maria, and he had no doubt that Amy would not want Maria to find out this way, but what could he do? Amy was in the hospital, and things were out of his control.

Valenti ran a hand through his hair and took a shaky breath. "You parents are separated."

Maria rolled her eyes again. "I know that," she replied. "Seeing as he's never been around."

"No, you don't understand," Valenti continued. "She _separated_ from him. That's all."

Maria looked at Valenti in bewilderment, not getting what it was he was telling her. She stared at him, silence falling between the two, then shook her head. "I don't…" She stopped abruptly, eyes widening dramatically. "Wait, are you saying that…" She let the sentence drift off, unable to finish it.

Valenti nodded. "Your mother never divorced your father," he said quietly, knowing this would be a shock to the girl, and wondering at the same time why Amy had never told her daughter the truth.

"But that's impossible. She told me she did. She _told_ me," Maria protested.

Valenti leaned back in his seat and studied Maria for a moment. Finally, he said simply, "For all intents and purposes, she did. She and your father haven't seen each other for sixteen years, and she has dated other people. Your father probably has as well. But while they are now living completely separate lives, they are still legally married." He stood slowly, and walked around the desk. "Which is another reason he has to be called."

"I don't understand," Maria asked, trying to process everything she had just learned.

Valenti sighed. "You are not a legal adult, Maria, and your mother is in the hospital. And under New Mexico state law, your father is your mother's next-of-kin."

Leaning against the wall outside the Sheriff's office, a tall blonde man with yellow eyes listened to the conversation, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. So the blonde waitress have never actually gotten to know her father? And with her mother in the hospital, there wouldn't be anyone there to determine whether or not the father was acting…oddly.

He looked down at the medical file under his right arm. He had noted in it that there was no sign of divorce between the parents, and from the little he understood of Earth law, that meant the father would be pulled into this web of secrets and lies quite soon.

The only problem was the Princess. Her instincts were good, better than most, and from the bits and pieces of conversations he had managed to hear, he had discovered that she had known he was not the deputy when she had seen him that night. Would she be able to tell…?

He would cross that bridge when he got there. First he had to find the father and remove him from the picture. Then he had to take his place and integrate himself back into their lives. And to do that…

Well, he needed a much better command of English. And colored contacts to get rid of the yellow of his eyes.

Filled with a sense of determination and practically able to taste the power he would receive when he held the strings of the new Antarian puppet government, he turned and ambled away.

* * *

Hank was livid. Michael didn't know why, and didn't care. All that mattered was that his foster father was in a drunken rage, and he had been forced to seek sanctuary in the bathroom. He had locked the door and melted the handle with his powers, then sat on the edge of the bathtub and listened to the sound of smashing glass and pounding footsteps. 

But his mind was not on his foster father. He was thinking over everything he had heard, everything he had seen, everything he had _felt_, in the past few days.

Silver handprints and shape-shifters, Ms. DeLuca in a car accident, almost kissing Maria, and breaking into Valenti's office.

His thoughts always came back to the last item on the list. There was something in that report, something he knew would help him out, but he just couldn't figure out what it was. The report was nothing out of the ordinary. Hannigan had been killed, his car had been stolen, and the murderer had not been found.

Which was not surprising, given the murderer might have the ability to change shape and form.

Michael rubbed his weary eyes and paused in his thoughts to listen to the sound of a fist hitting wood. Hank was getting angrier by the second.

Wait.

The car had been stolen. The car had been stolen by the person who murdered Hannigan. Hannigan had been found by the alley of the Crashdown, but Michael and Isabel had seen him get into his car at that very spot, and drive away.

Was that proof that the person who had killed Hannigan had been a shape-shifter?

Well, it was close. Close enough, Michael decided, standing up abruptly, that he should investigate a little. Perhaps the shape-shifter had left a clue somewhere along the way. Or maybe somewhere in the car?

Yes, that was a definite possibility.

The police report had confirmed that the car had been found and returned to the Sheriff's office. It was currently sitting in some lot outside the office, probably under protection since it was evidence in an ongoing homicide investigation. It would be difficult to break into, but not impossible.

Michael though fleetingly of calling Max. But Max would take the safe route, the 'sit around and wait for something to happen to us before actually acting' route, and he didn't want to do that. He was tired of hiding in plain sight, tired of holding his breath every time a police car passed him on the street, tired of living with this feeling that he was simply waiting for the other shoe to drop.

What about Tess? She might be some help, distracting Jim and the deputies while he slipped into the lot. But she wouldn't be able to do much more than that, and as she was still furious at him, furious at them all, and he didn't want to waste time arguing with her.

Isabel? No, Michael disregarded that suggestion almost immediately. She would most likely take Max's side on this one, but even more than that, things had suddenly become… awkward between them, and he wasn't sure exactly where he stood with her anymore. He wasn't really sure where he stood with any of the other aliens anymore.

So was this something he should do on his own?

_I feel so very Charlie's Angels._

The thought came unbidden to his mind, and Michael smiled despite himself. Maybe he wouldn't have to do it alone after all.

* * *

"Hey, Alex," Isabel said cheerfully, taking a seat next to him at the Crashdown. She flipped her blonde hair behind her shoulders and gave him a sunny smile, which he returned hesitantly. "What are you doing?" 

Alex glanced down at the notebook in front of him. "I was just reading over my biology notes for the test Tuesday," he replied. It was partially true, he was thinking about biology. But he was also thinking about Maria, about the way she had blown him off the night before. He wasn't upset about that, if she wanted to break into Valenti's office, he knew better than to try and stop her. But it bothered him that she hadn't called, hadn't even told him the truth about where she was. It bothered him, because it was one more reminder that his friends were drifting apart.

How many times had he seen Liz after she started dating Max? Too few, and most of them were related to the aliens in some way. And now Maria was slipped away from him as well, and he wondered how much longer it would be until she too all but disappeared from his life.

"Oh…" Isabel frowned for a moment, then asked, "I was wondering if you wanted to hang out some time?" She glanced away from Alex and up to the front of the diner. Maria and Liz were there, talking in hushed whispers, while Maria cleaned the counter with a rag and Liz filled ketchup bottles. It was almost closing, and the diner was empty except for the four of them.

"Hang out?" Alex questioned, not sure what the words meant. Hang out like friends, or hang out like on a date?

"Yeah, you know, maybe grab something to eat of see a movie or something," Isabel explained. She saw the look in Alex's eyes and hurried on, "You know, just as friends."

"You want to be friends?" Alex asked skeptically. She had never wanted to be friends with anyone other than Max and Michael before. But then, Alex had seen the way Michael looked at Maria with something a little more than indifference in his eyes. And he knew just how often Liz went to see Max. He wondered vaguely if Isabel felt that her friends were drifting apart the same way he did.

"You know, it would be fun to do something," Isabel was saying.

Alex nodded. "Sure," he replied. Why not?

The door swung open suddenly, and Michael walked into the diner. He was hunched over slightly, and his eyes were glowering. It was so small, so discreet a change, that only the other hybrids would have been able to pick up on it, and know what it meant.

"Hank?" Isabel breathed as Michael came closer.

Michael nodded slowly. "Mad about something, but God only knows what. Too drunk to form a coherent sentence."

"You can probably stay on the floor of Max's room if you want," Isabel suggested.

Michael shook his head. "Thanks, but I've got work to do," he replied, and walked away. And Isabel was left staring after him and wondering what had happened to her close knit family.

Maria and Liz both turned as Michael approached them, and Liz muttered something about needing more empty ketchup bottles before disappearing into the kitchen. Maria stared at Michael apprehensively, shifting from one foot to the other.

"Hey," Michael greeted her. "I need to talk to you."

Maria perked up instantly, a slight smile playing at the corners of her lips. Did he want to talk about the almost-kiss? "Sure, about what?"

"When we broke into Valenti's office, and I read the report on Hannigan…you remember?" Michael asked. He was the pensive look on Maria's face, the distant stare, and wasn't entirely sure exactly what it was he was seeing. What was she thinking about?

"I remember," Maria replied quietly.

"Well, in the report," Michael lowered his voice, "it mentions that Hannigan's car was stolen. I thought maybe there would be a clue there or something. Do you want to investigate it with me?"

"Investigate what?" Maria demanded with disappointment. This was not about them, it was about the aliens. As always.

Then she mentally slapped herself. There was no _them_. Not in that way. Not yet.

"The car," Michael replied, rolling his eyes as though it was obvious. Maria raised an eyebrow, and he elaborated, "The shape-shifter may have left a clue there."

"So this is…Czechoslovakian?"

"Huh?" It took Michael a moment to remember what the word meant, what the humans used it as a synonym for. Finally, he nodded. "Of course," he replied in confusion. "What else would it be?"

Maria grew even more disgruntled at that comment, leaving Michael to wonder in bewilderment what exactly it was she had been expecting him to say.

Maria ran a hand through her short hair and contemplated her choices. Part of her wanted to turn around and walk away, get as far away from this confusing and strange feeling that kept plaguing her every time she spoke to Michael. The other part of her wanted to agree, even if breaking into a car was a stupid idea, even if Michael was a completely oblivious idiot.

"I guess…" Maria consented at last with a slight shrug.

"You okay?" Michael asked. The indifference he forced into his voice only barely masked the concern he was feeling. "You seem…distracted."

Maria sought about for a suitable explanation, then said, "I had a talk with Valenti about my mother." She bit her lip and continued, "He wants to call my father."

Michael waited, sensing that there was something else she wanted to say, but Maria remained silent. Somehow, she just couldn't bring herself to reveal the truth about her parents, that they were still married. She hadn't even told Liz, so telling Michael was out of the question.

"Oh," Michael muttered, unsure what else to say. He shrugged uncomfortably and looked down at his hands.

Liz chose that moment to appear in the room again, fortunately breaking the awkward silence that was about to fall over the taciturn alien and blonde human. "Hey," she said brightly to Michael. "Do you know where Max is? I tried calling him, but he didn't answer his cell phone."

Michael nodded. "Yeah, I think he went to talk to Tess," he replied.

"About the Hardings?" Liz asked quietly.

Michael nodded again. "And about that flash you had," he continued. "I don't think he's told her yet."

"Oh, you had another flash? What was it about?" Maria asked in interest, turning to her best friend.

Liz swallowed nervously. It was about her boyfriend possibly being involved with another girl in a past life no one could remember. It was about her boyfriend being a leader in a war that, from the brutality of her flashes, had obviously killed a lot of people. It was about the one thing that separated her from Max, that made him so different from everything she had ever known. But somehow, she didn't want to say it, didn't want to put all of that into words.

Liz shrugged. "Nothing I haven't seen before." Maria nodded slowly, not quite believing the half-truth, while behind her, Michael raised one eyebrow in surprise.

* * *

"How _dare_ you?" 

Max closed his eyes and wondered briefly if it was even worth answering the question. Tess had worked herself into such a state that he had no doubt she would not have hesitated to blast him from here to kingdom come if she had been less worried about exposure. And he knew there was no right answer to her question.

But he answered anyway.

"They have to know," Max replied patiently. "If this…this alien is in town…we're all in this together, Tess. He could attack any of us."

He was standing outside Tess' window, trying to talk some sense into her. Whatever Michael had said to her after the earlier conversation at the Crashdown, it had not calmed her down. If anything, she seemed more worked up than usual, more upset. Although Max thought fleetingly that that could be attributed to the possibility that the Hardings' murderer was in town.

Tess rolled her eyes sarcastically. "But he hasn't attacked _us_, Max. He's attacked some random guy in an alley and possibly Hannigan. If you are so worried about protecting people, why don't you just tell _everyone_ is Roswell since we can't predict who his next target will be!"

"Tess…"

"It is my _life_!" Tess snapped. "And _my_ secret to reveal, and you had _no_ right to tell them."

"Look, I need to tell you something else, okay?" Max said, changing the subject. He knew there was no point in continuing this conversation, neither party was willing to compromise their opinion. And an argument with Tess was not the reason he had come to her window. "Liz had a flash."

Tess raised an eyebrow, trying and failing to appear uninterested in the statement. "What was it?" she asked, her voice betraying her intense curiosity.

"You," Max said quickly. "And me. You _and_ me. Us."

Tess stared at him, comprehension dawning. "Us as in…_us_?"

Max nodded.

A million thoughts and emotions rushed through Tess' mind, the first of which was that she would never in a million years have…have… God, she couldn't even think the words. Her and Max…that was…that was…

"Liz must have been mistaken."

"She wasn't," Max replied calmly.

"But, Max…you and me…that's like…" Tess shook her head, blonde curls falling in front of her eyes. She bit her lip for a moment, then continued, "That's just as completely ridiculous as saying that Michael and Isabel were together."

Max blinked. "That's exactly what Isabel said," he commented, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. Then he frowned, remembering the threat Isabel had delivered. He silently hoped she had changed her mind, the last thing he needed was to have to deal with his mother giving him relationship advice about Tess.

"What?" Tess asked sharply, seeing the frown.

Max shook his head, not wanting to relate the conversation with Isabel. Instead, he chose a different, though equally disturbing, subject. "We were running from something, afraid of something," Max elaborated on the flash. "And Liz said I was a leader of some sort."

"Like a captain or general?" Tess questioned, leaning on the window frame. "A leader in the war?"

Max shrugged. "I don't know. I don't know any more than what I've just told you."

Tess accepted this without question, mulling over the facts. Finally, she asked, "What did we look like?"

"Liz didn't know," Max replied, his tone expressing his disappointment. "She said she couldn't see us, she could just…feel that we were there."

"How's Ms. DeLuca?" Tess asked abruptly, changing the subject.

Max seemed surprised at the question, but he did not comment on it. "She's still in critical condition. The doctors don't know if she'll make it or not. Maria's a wreck, and Liz is driving herself to complete exhaustion trying to be there for her."

"What about Isabel?" Tess continued. "Is she still freaked out about the shape-shifter?"

"Right now I think she is more upset that we didn't believe her the first time she suggested the possibility of another alien being in town," Max replied honestly. He remembered the fear in his sisters eyes when she had told him what had happened. It was a fear he had seen only a few times before, always in Tess' eyes when she talked about… "Do you think he's the same one that killed the Hardings?"

Tess didn't answer right away. Shutters dropped over her eyes, masking the inner turmoil. "I don't know," she answered. If it was the same alien, then she was about to get thrown headlong into a confrontation with the past. If it was a different alien, then there were two enemies they had to contend with.

She wasn't sure which possibility scared her more.

"Keep your eyes open and be on your guard," Max instructed.

Tess nodded absently. "Of course," she replied. "I always do." And that was, for the most part, the truth.

"Eventually we are going to have to talk about what happened to Andrew and Jessica," Max continued. "We need to see if there is any kind of clue that could help us deal with…with whatever it is we are dealing with."

"And will this be a meeting with all seven us?" Tess asked bitterly, her eyes filling with annoyance.

"Tess, we've been over this before," Max replied in exasperation. "For our own safety, we need to…"

"Of course," Tess interrupted. "Why don't we just tell them everything about my past? All of my secrets? And while were at it, invite Kyle and Jim along. And your parents. And the Parkers. Let's just have a big tell-everything-about-Tess-without-her-consent party!"

And just like that, the conversation turned sour again.

"Tess, you have to understand that sometimes your secrets don't get precedence over our safety," Max retorted. He would have much rather had Tess' permission to tell what happened to her parents, but she had refused to give it to him, and everyone _needed_ to know. They had precious little knowledge of whatever it was they were up against, any extra detail could make all the differenced in the world right now.

"You could have told them that there had been another occurrence with silver handprints and not given specifics. You didn't have to say who it was," Tess replied, grudgingly accepting the fact that the humans were in danger, and the more they knew the safer they would be.

"I didn't," Max defended himself. "Liz guessed it. What was I supposed to do, lie to all of them? She knew!"

"And why did she ever have to know about the Hardings in the first place?" Tess shot back. "Why did you have to tell her? Why couldn't you have just left well enough alone?"

"She could have looked it up online. It wasn't like it was a secret. It made the papers," Max replied pointedly.

Tess ran a hand through her hair and turned away sharply. He was understanding _why_ she was upset, he didn't see her point. It wasn't the fact that the secret got revealed, it was the _way_ in which Liz, Maria, and Alex found out the truth. It was her secret, her life, her…her _nightmare _to relivenot some story to share with the first curious person who asked.

"Why do you even want to keep it a secret?" Max demanded. "The Hardings' deaths were _not_ your fault!" And Max knew in that instant that he had hit the nail on the head. Tess' eyes widened slightly and her lips pressed together into a thin disapproving line.

"Don't presume to understand a thing about me!" she replied icily.

"Well, if that isn't the reason, what is? Why do you want it kept a secret?"

Tess looked back at Max, her eyes unreadable and guarded. "I have no doubt that eventually every little detail of it will have to be discussed and hashed out if we are to get anywhere in all this. Ever since the shooting…Max, we don't know what is happening or how to stop it. We are all lost and confused, and I understand the need to know as much as possible. But this is more than just a source of information. This is who I am and who I could have been and what might have happened. This is two people who could have been my family and are dead now because they knew me. This is…this is the one moment in time that…that turned me into…into _me_. Does it really surprise you that I would want to hold on to one of the few things I have left that is solely and completely _mine_?"

* * *

Next Chapter: Ice Queen 

Due: Friday 2/24


	22. Ice Queen

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Author's note: Thanks to everyone who reviewed and gave their opinions on Max and Tess. The reviews were very helpful, and eventually I may ask for opinions on other characters as well when I get to certain points in the story. This chapter is pretty Tess based, and, just a warning, it shows a not-so-pleasant side of her.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-One: Ice Queen

_Tess tucked a strand of blonde hair behind one ear and watched the television screen. The babysitter was sitting at the table behind the sofa, working on her calculus homework. She was so absorbed in the assignment, she paid little attention to the young alien, which suited Tess just fine._

_There was a knock at the door, and Tess felt and inexplicable dread. The baby-sitter stood and flipped her red hair over one shoulder, then walked to the door. She pulled the chain lock open, and Tess had to fight the sudden urge to scream._

_Something was wrong._

_She saw a flash of something, of bodies, and then a glowing hand-print, silver and shiny. The sound of metal scraping against the road, shadows slipping away into the darkness, blood and shattered glass. And the handprint again, distinct and glowing with an unearthly light._

_Then the vision was gone, and three men were standing in the house, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot as they stared down at the young blonde and her babysitter._

"_Tess?" the first man asked, crouching down next to her by the sofa and placing a hand on her shoulder. "Tess, sweetie, I've got some bad news…"_

_Tess looked at him, her blue eyes filled with heart wrenching fear. She nodded slowly and licked dry lips, forcing out two words. "I know."_

Tess jolted awake and stared around her bedroom in surprise. She shoved the blankets away from her, and realized she was covered with sweat. Pushing sticky strands of hair out of her eyes, she stood up slowly, dizziness washing over her, and then sank to the floor, gasping for breath.

* * *

"I want to apologize to her."

"I'm sorry, you want to what?" Maria demanded as she followed her best friend through the halls of the school. Alex trotted behind them, his eyes displaying his disbelief at Liz's comment, although he was not quite as vocal with his protests.

"I want to apologize to her," Liz repeated. "Obviously, Tess did not want us to know about her parents, and I _am_ sorry that it came up the way it did."

"Liz, we had to know. With what Isabel saw…" Maria paused and glanced around, then lowered her voice, "The handprint, Liz. If it is in anyway connected, think of the danger we are all in."

"I know," Liz said, shaking her head at Maria. "But I also know that alienating Tess is not a good idea right now." She bit her lip, then said, "No pun intended on that one."

Alex gave Liz a brief smile, then said, "I agree with you that we need to stick together, Liz, but at the same time, Maria is right, we needed to know. We are all in this together."

Liz paused at her locker and quickly fiddled with the lock until it open. She pulled her lunch and notebooks out of her backpack and placed them in the locker, then grabbed her English book. "Guys, I'm not saying that I'm sorry that we found out, I'm saying I am sorry about _how_ we found out." She slammed the locker shut. "Any maybe, if I apologize to Tess, she'll understand that we are on the same side, and she'll stop being so secretive about all this. I just don't want hard feelings."

"I think you are pretty much stuck with hard feelings from Tess no matter what," Maria replied dryly. She turned and walked away, shaking her head at Liz' naiveté as she did so.

Liz turned to Alex. "What do you think?" she asked curiously.

Alex hesitated, then said, "I think you should do whatever you think makes the most sense." He nodded towards the double doors to the class and said, "But if you are going to talk to her, now would be a good time to do it."

Liz turned and watched as Tess appeared in the hallway. She was talking to Trudy, which made Liz squirm slightly at the thought of approaching them. The news of Kyle's and Trudy's breakup had spread rapidly through the school, along with all the rumors that Kyle was still in love with Liz.

But it would be better to talk to Tess now, when she was just with Trudy, then when she was hanging out with Sara and Jessica as well. So Liz, drawing a breath and trying to summon her courage, walked over to the petite blonde.

"Tess? Can I talk to you for a moment?"

Tess turned and stared at Liz in complete shock. "What?" she demanded harshly.

"I just wanted to apologize about…everything." Liz shot a quick look at Trudy, who understood the silent request that Liz wanted to talk to Tess alone, and muttered something about needing to go to her locker. Once Trudy was gone, Liz continued, "I'm sorry about how the conversation at the Crashdown went. I never wanted to step on your toes like that. I understand what it is like not to want to share secrets, and I…"

"You understand?" Tess cut in, her voice mocking. "You think you actually _understand_?" She would have found the comment funny if she wasn't currently so furious with the entire world.

"Tess, I…"

"Trust me, Liz, you don't understand at all," Tess spat.

"Look, Tess, I just want to…"

"Apologize and become friends? That's _never_ going to happen," Tess hissed.

"Why not?" Liz questioned.

"I don't know, Liz, why don't you go ask Max. I'm sure he will be more than happy to tell you," Tess replied with a dark chuckle. "He's good at spilling other people's secrets."

"Tess, we needed to know," Liz said calmly, frustrated at the conversation. Why couldn't Tess just accept that they were part of the group?

"Because you aren't part of the group," Tess said abruptly, and Liz blinked in surprise.

"How did you know I was thinking that?" Liz asked quietly. "Can you…?"

"Read minds? Don't be ridiculous, Liz, nobody can read minds. The brain, human or otherwise, is not set up like that." Tess gestured to Liz's face and said, "But I can read expressions, and your silent question was rather obvious."

"Why won't you let us into the group?" Liz asked.

Tess closed her eyes for a moment, trying to keep her temper under some semblance of control. The last thing they needed right now was a screaming match where the wrong thing might be said…and overheard... by the wrong person.

"Tess?"

"You aren't a…Czechoslovakian," Tess said quietly. "This isn't your life. You can walk away if you want. You can turn us in if you want. You have a choice, and we don't, and _that_ is what makes us different."

"I could have turned you in," Liz agreed, "but I _didn't_. And I am _never_ going to. I'm on your side, whether you like it or not, and just so we are clear on this, Maria, Alex, and I never asked to for all of this to happen to us."

Tess gave Liz a searching look, then replied, "And just do we are clear on this, Max, Isabel, Michael, and I never asked for this either." Then she turned and walked away, leaving Liz to think over her words.

* * *

"Hey, Izzy," Alex said cheerfully as he approached her at her locker. She turned and looked at him, one eyebrow raised, and he flushed scarlet. "Uh…Isabel, I mean. Hi, Isabel."

Isabel smiled. "Hey, Alex," she said, cutting in before he could start babbling. "What's up?"

"Well, I was wondering if you wanted to grab something to eat after school today," Alex said, suddenly hesitant. "You, uh…you said you wanted to do something…some time, and I thought…today after school would be…"

"Sounds nice," Isabel replied. "I'll meet you by your locker after school."

"Great," Alex agreed. "We can talk and…I don't know, work on homework or something."

"Okay," Isabel nodded. "I have to admit, I don't really understand our assignment for chemistry…" she frowned and him, "although I guess that's more Liz's department."

"Oh, well I can try to help," Alex rushed to assure her.

"I'll see you after school, then," Isabel replied.

Alex smiled. "It's a date." Then he realized what he said, and looked at Isabel in horror. "Well, not a date in the sense that it's a date…like where two people go out together…it's not a date, I mean…not that you aren't…uh, well…"

"I'll see you after school," Isabel repeated, realizing that she was blushing slightly as well. She turned and walked quickly away, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from bursting into laughter.

Alex watched her go, shaking his head in disgust at himself. "Oh, really smooth, Alex," he muttered. He didn't understand any of this. He was comfortable around Maria and Liz, he was smart and confident in computer science, he knew how to play the guitar, and he turned into a babbling idiot whenever he was around Isabel.

"Pretty girls do tend to make boys act like idiots."

Alex spun around to see Ms. Topolski standing there, smiling at him. He returned the smile hesitantly and nodded. "They do indeed."

* * *

"I hate school," Sara muttered as she dropped her books on to the table at the Crashdown and slid into the seat next to Tess, and across from Trudy and Jessica. "I have a three page essay on Paradise Lost. I don't even understand Paradise Lost. It has no sentence structure."

"Actually, it is based on the sentence structure for Latin," Trudy replied, looking up from her milkshake and onion rings.

Sara rolled her eyes. "Do I look like I know Latin?" she snapped.

"Well, when Milton wrote it, most aristocrats knew both Latin and Greek. And French," Trudy explained simply.

"Well, I'm not an English aristocrat from the Middle Ages," Sara scowled.

Jessica laughed, but at Sara's angry glare, she quickly turned the laugh into a cough and looked back down at her plate. A silence fell over the four girls, then Trudy turned to Tess and ventured a hesitant question.

"What did Liz want to talk to you about?"

"Liz Parker talked to you?" Jessica asked, leaning forward with interest. She propped her elbows on the table. "Why?"

"It wasn't anything important," Tess said shortly, her tone leaving little doubt that she did not want to have this conversation.

"Oh?" It was impressive how much skepticism and suspicion Sara managed to fit into that one word.

Tess glanced at her friends, then looked away. The door to the diner opened at that moment, and Isabel and Alex entered. They were talking quietly, rather uncomfortably, as though neither was sure entirely what to say. Tess thought fleetingly that Alex was acting almost exactly the same way Max had when he and Liz first started dating.

"Tess? Earth to Tess?"

Tess jerked back to the others, and sighed. "What? It was nothing," she repeated in annoyance. Why couldn't they just leave well enough alone?

"Did you forgive her?" Trudy questioned. Tess raised an eyebrow, and Trudy shrugged. "She said she wanted to apologize for something. Whatever it was, did you forgive her for it?"

"Why do you care?" Tess asked bitingly.

Trudy frowned, not used to having Tess' temper directed against her. "I just…I'm just curious," she managed at last.

"Not that it is any of your business, but no, I didn't," Tess snapped. She took a sip of her water and looked down at the onion rings on her plate, suddenly finding she no longer wanted them.

"Why not?" Trudy pressed. Jessica and Sara glanced back and forth between the two arguing friends, each wondering what was going to happen. Trudy should have known by now not to pry into Tess' thoughts when she was in a bad mood, which she clearly was, but Tess did seem to be blowing things out of proportion. It was an innocent question, and Trudy was her friend.

"Because I didn't want to," Tess hissed.

"But she apologized. If she's sorry…" Trudy bit her lip, wondering what to say next. She liked Tess, she really did, but the girl could be so cold sometimes. Ice Queen really was an appropriate name.

She suddenly remembered something Ms. Topolski had told her when she had first met the woman, a piece of advice that had stuck with her for a while now.

_It takes a lot of courage to criticize our friends, Ms. McIntire. But sometimes it is the right thing to do._

"Look, I know you are still upset with Liz for what happened with Kyle, but maybe it's time to stop being so…icy," Trudy ventured.

"This coming from the girl who broke up with her boyfriend because of Liz," Tess spat back, and Trudy flushed at the low blow.

"Tess, that was uncalled for…" Sara broke in.

But Tess' temper snapped. "Oh, shut up! It's just Liz, for God's sake. Why do you even care?" she hissed. Sara was, of course, entirely correct, it was uncalled for. But she was in a bad mood, and once the words left her mouth, she couldn't get herself to stop. "I don't have to forgive her if I don't want, and you have no idea what it is I'm mad at her about anyway! Don't tell me what I should or shouldn't do!" And without another word, she stood up and grabbed her purse, and flounced away.

"I think she's in a bad mood," Sara whispered.

Jessica rolled her eyes. "Really?" she replied sarcastically. "What gave it away?"

* * *

"Max?" Mrs. Evans knocked on the door of her son's room and waited until he opened it. She gave him a warm smile and stepped into the room. "You've been gone for a while. I was wondering where you were."

"Oh, I went to the hospital with Liz," Max replied, taking a seat on his bed. "She wanted to show support for Maria."

"How is Amy doing?" Mrs. Evans asked in concern. "I went over to see her this morning during visiting hours. Of course, there isn't much we can do since she is still unconscious."

"She's still stable," Max said. "But she's also still in a coma."

Mrs. Evans nodded slowly, then took a deep breath and switched subjects. "Do you remember when you were much younger and you found that injured bird?" she asked hesitantly.

Max nodded, struggling to keep his expression neutral. Yes, he remembered, he remembered that incident quite well. He also remembered healing the bird and watching it fly away. And he remembered that his parents had videotaped the entire incident.

"That bird managed to fly away. It was…like a miracle, almost," Mrs. Evans said quietly.

"It just wasn't that badly injured, Mom," Max replied, trying to give her a smile. It came out strained, more of a grimace than anything else.

"I guess," Mrs. Evans agreed with a smile. There was a silence, long and uncomfortable, then Mrs. Evans said quietly, "You would tell me if there was anything going on, right?"

"What do you mean?" Max asked, his heart beating frantically.

"I'm not sure," Mrs. Evans replied honestly. "That's what worries me the most."

"Mom, nothing is going on," Max said stubbornly, shaking his head.

Mrs. Evans' lips thinned into a straight line as she stared at her son. "Alright," she said at last. "But you know you can talk to me about anything, right?"

"Of course," Max said quickly. He watched as his mother gave him a tight nod and left the room, her eyes clouded with worry and suspicion. He listened until her footsteps had faded completely, then he slammed his fist into the pillows on his bed and groaned in frustration.

"I know I can tell you anything, Mom," he muttered. "Anything but this."

* * *

"I don't get why Trudy won't go out with me," Kyle complained. He was sitting at the kitchen table watching as Tess prepared dinner. Valenti was out for the evening, although neither Kyle nor Tess had any idea where he was. He had become so completely distant from them both after Amy was hospitalized.

"Well, she was upset about Liz," Tess said calmly, tearing iceberg lettuce into smaller pieces and dumping it into a vegetable washer. "When your boyfriend can't stop thinking about his ex-girlfriend, being upset is a reasonable response."

"She's the one who wanted me to make up with Liz in the first place," Kyle replied, shaking his head in bewilderment.

Tess sighed and turned to face her brother. "Kyle, she only told you that because she didn't want you to think that she was jealous or that she was trying to control who you were friends with. She saw how much you still liked Liz, although God only knows why you feel that way…"

"Cut it out," Kyle replied without any heat. The arguments over Liz had become so frequent in the week before the two had broken up that neither sibling seemed to have the energy to put any effort into them.

"So Trudy was hoping that you would get over Liz and move on, but in the meantime she didn't want to be one of the girlfriends who doesn't let her boyfriend even talk to girls."

"Why didn't she just say that?" Kyle asked incredulously.

"Because it should have been _obvious_," Tess replied. She shook her head and dumped the now washed lettuce into the salad bowl. Honestly, was Kyle completely oblivious to all things relating to girls?

"You told me everything would work out with Trudy," Kyle replied, feeling slightly annoyed that Tess was defending the other girl. He was her brother, she was supposed to be on his side. "And then she goes and breaks up with me over some stupid…"

"It probably wasn't stupid to her," Tess cut in coldly.

"She was jealous of Liz!"

"Yeah, well, you _are_ still pining away after Liz," Tess retorted, grabbing some carrots and cucumber and slamming them down onto the counter.

"I'm not pining after Liz," Kyle snapped. "I've moved on, alright?"

"You obviously didn't make that very clear to Trudy," Tess pointed out, rolling her eyes. She turned and glanced up at the clock, noting the time. "So we are assuming that Jim won't be home for dinner?"

"I guess not," Kyle answered, shrugging. "Where do you think he is?"

Tess shrugged, looking unconcerned about her adopted father. "Hospital, maybe," she suggested in a rather bored tone that made Kyle bristle.

"You know, you could show sympathy for Dad, seeing as his girlfriend just got hit by a truck," Kyle said, biting off the words angrily.

Tess gave him a cool look and said, "I came to the hospital, didn't I?" She glanced around for a sharp knife to cut the vegetables, finally finding one in the sink. She rinsed it quickly and washed the blade with soap, then walked over to the cucumber and carrots on the cutting board. "And if he actually ever shows up, I'll be sympathetic then as well. But it isn't as though he told us he was dating Amy DeLuca, so what am I supposed to do? Act like it was _my_ mother that got hit?" Even as she said the words, she knew they were cold and unfeeling, but her temper was getting the best of her, and she was tired of being the last to know everything. The aliens' survival had always depended on being together, being strong, and it went against every instinct she had to let others into the group and into her secrets.

But she relented slightly on her cold words and said, "I am sympathetic, Kyle. But unless Jim comes home any time soon I can't…"

"You've lived here for several years now, Tess. Would it kill you to call him Dad?" Kyle interrupted her angrily, feeling defensive of his father. His back to Tess, he didn't see the fear that jumped into her eyes at the word 'kill.' He did, however, register that she had not answered the question.

"Tess?" Kyle pressed. He turned and looked at her, but she was determinedly avoiding his gaze. "Have you ever called Andrew Harding Dad? Or do you enjoy being a brat to him too?"

Tess placed the knife down on the counter and turned to Kyle. Her blue eyes burned with fire as she replied. "I called him Dad. I called him Dad once." She swallowed the lump that formed in her throat. "Right before he and Jessica went out for the evening, leaving me with a babysitter." She picked up the knife, turned her back to Kyle, and continued cutting the vegetables into small slices. For a moment, all that could be heard in the kitchen was the sharp crack of the knife on the cutting board. Then Tess said in a barely audible voice, "I called him Dad, and a few hours later the police informed me that they had _scraped_ Andrew's and Jessica's bodies out of their car."

Kyle stood there, staring at his sister, unsure of what to say. He blinked and wondered how he managed to stick his foot in his mouth so badly. "Tess…" he began, but the look she gave him told him clearly not to finish the sentence. Not knowing what else to do, he turned and walked out of the kitchen.

Once Kyle was gone, Tess put the knife down on the cutting board and closed her eyes, blinking back the tears that had started to form.

* * *

Next Chapter: Family In All Its Forms 

Due: Friday 3/3


	23. Family In All Its Forms

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's Note: Sorry about the lack of reply to reviews, this week got so hectic I was barely able to get this chapter out on time. I'll be able to answer the reviews next week, though. Also, does anyone know if Maria's father was ever given a name on the show?

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Two: Family In All Its Forms

"You're mother is asking questions?" Liz whispered as she took a seat next to Max on the sofa. "What sort of questions?"

Max wrapped his arm around Liz's shoulders and murmured, "We have a tape from when I was much younger. Isabel and I were at the park, and I found a bird with a broken wing, and I healed it."

"You have that on tape?" Liz asked, aghast.

"Well, not the actual healing," Max explained. But it shows me picking up the injured bird, and then my mother runs over and pulls me away from the animal, and then a few moments later it flies away."

"That's not good," Liz commented dryly.

Max gave her a brief smile, and then his mother walked into the room, and he turned and looked up at her. "Hey, Mom."

"Hey Max. Liz," Mrs. Evans nodded to both of them. "I didn't realize you were coming over today, Liz," she continued. "Are you staying for dinner?"

"Oh, no Mrs. Evans," Liz replied. "I'm just here for a few more minutes before I have to head over to the Crashdown. I'm working tonight, covering for Maria."

"How is Maria doing?" Mrs. Evans asked instantly, her voice filled with sympathy.

"She's…managing," Liz answered honestly.

"Well, you tell her if there is anything I can do for her, she shouldn't hesitate to call," Mrs. Evans declared.

"I'll tell her, thank you," Liz said. "At the moment, I don't think there is much you can do, though."

Mrs. Evans nodded and gave the two another smile. Her eyes lingered on Max for a moment, and they were filled with a concerned and motherly questioning. Max squirmed under the brief gaze and looked away, and Mrs. Evans left the room.

"I hate lying to her," Max muttered. He glanced at Liz. "I know, somewhere out there, I have a different mother. A biological one. But this is the only life I can remember, and for all intents and purposes, Mom is my Mom." He shook his head in self disgust and said, "And I'm lying to her about who, and what, I am."

Liz leaned in and kissed Max on the cheek. "Why don't you tell her?" she whispered. "She is your mother, she'll love you regardless."

"Will they?" Max was not so sure. "When they find out that I'm not human?" He shook his head and then leaned in to kiss Liz back. "But more than that… Hannigan is dead, the Hardings are dead. And neither of them knew who we were. Just imagine how much danger my parents would be in if they knew the truth. If something happened to them because of me, I wouldn't be able to deal with it." He kissed Liz again. "Maybe one day I can tell them, but not now…"

* * *

"Sheriff Valenti?"

Valenti looked up in surprise to see Maria standing in the doorway. She was leaning against the wooden frame and staring at him with a torn expression.

"Yes? Come on in, Ms. DeLuca," Valenti said quickly, standing up and gesturing for Maria to take a seat. He shoved the files he had been looking at aside and gave the blonde his full attention. "How can I help you?"

"I've thought about it, and I don't want you to call my father," Maria said.

"Under state law, I have to…" Valenti began, but Maria held up a hand.

"Under state law, my father has to be informed so that he can make a decision about my mother's health and medical treatment." She licked her dry lips and looked Valenti straight in the eye. "But he doesn't have to be informed by you."

Valenti hesitated, slightly puzzled by the comment, then comprehension dawned. "You want to call him yourself?" he asked, unsure how he felt about that.

"Yes," Maria replied. "If you can give me his number…I would like to be the one to tell him."

Valenti swiveled around in his seat and opened the filing cabinet behind him, pulling out Amy DeLuca's file. He flipped through it for a moment, then selected a sheet of paper and handed it to Maria. "Here you are, Ms. DeLuca."

"Call me Maria," Maria replied absently as she took the paper and looked at it.

Her father…

"Maria, are you sure you don't want me to call him?" Valenti asked. He didn't want to cause her any more emotional distress than completely necessary, and he wasn't entirely sure she was ready to face her father quite yet.

But Maria was adamant. "He is my father, and this is a phone call I have to make." She was silent for a moment, then looked up at Valenti. "Before…before the accident, did you know that my mother wasn't divorced?"

Valenti shook his head. "No," he said quietly. "No, I didn't." His heart constricted painfully as he thought about that. He had always assumed that Amy was single, and as their relationship had steadily progressed he had often wondered what life would be like if they moved in together. The subject itself had never been breached, because both adults knew their children would have strong objections to such a course of action, but Valenti had still wondered.

"What happened to the truck driver?" Maria asked, switching subjects and breaking the momentary dismal silence that had fallen.

"He'll be taken to court in Santa Fe next week," Valenti replied. "He wasn't under the influence, so as long as Amy recovers successfully, there isn't much we can charge him with besides reckless endangerment of lives. A few months of jail time and a fine." He was not pleased about that, but his job was to enforce the law, not seek vengeance on irresponsible drivers.

"He can't get anymore than that?" Maria asked incredulously. "A few months of jail? My mother almost _died_!"

"Believe me, Maria, I would give him more time if I could," Valenti said grimly. "But that is the law."

Maria was silently seething, but she accepted this with a nod of her head. "Fine," she snapped. "But it doesn't seem fair."

"It isn't," Valenti said simply. He closed his eyes for a moment, picturing a pale Amy lying on the hospital bed. Opening his eyes and glancing at Maria, he asked, "Is there anything else?"

"What happens if my father and I disagree over something about my mother's medical care?" Maria asked abruptly.

Valenti sighed and shook his head. "It is his decision, Maria." He watched Maria's eyes widen in disbelief, then fall with dismay. Hurrying on, he tried to reassure the girl, "Although, if it is something you feel strongly about, I could take the issue to court for you."

"Well, hopefully we won't disagree about anything," Maria replied.

"Yes," Valenti agreed. "Maria…" He frowned, trying to figure out a way to best phrase his next question. Biting his bottom lip, he regarded the girl in front of him for a moment. Ever since he and Amy had started dating, he had felt a sort-of paternal protection towards Maria. It also helped that she was Liz's best friend, and, at the time, Liz and Kyle had still been dating. But now that Amy was in the hospital, and Maria was left alone in the middle of this crisis, he had felt his protective instincts flare even more.

And the fact that Amy was not divorced suddenly complicated all that.

"Maria, because your parents are not divorced, there has been no custody settlement."

"What?" Maria demanded, hoping that the Sheriff was not saying what she thought he was saying.

"Your father is still your legal guardian," the Sheriff explained hesitantly. "When you call him, when he comes into your life, just…keep that in mind." Maria swallowed and looked down at her hands, and Valenti sighed. "If there isn't anything else…" He needed to get back to the case he was working on. In the aftermath of the accident, he had forgotten about all his other work, but Hannigan's killer had not been found, and he was still determined to catch the man responsible for the deputy's death.

Maria nodded and glanced at the clock on the wall. She had been in the office for fifteen minutes. She could only hope that was enough time for Michael to have done whatever it was he wanted to do.

* * *

Michael glanced at the disabled security camera's around the compound. It had been child's play, rerouting their wires so that they played a continuous loop of what they had just seen. He doubted anyone would be looking too closely, so it was unlikely what he had done would be noticed.

The compound was located just outside the Sheriff's office. Michael had waited until the opportune moment, until all the deputies had gone home. It was now night, and the Sheriff was still working, but Maria had slipped in to distract him and make sure he did not come out into the back.

Michael used his gifts to open the door of the car. He stuck his head inside, and was hit instantly with the smell of stale cigarette smoke and dry air. Glancing around the car, he ran his hands over the seats and along the dashboard, wondering what he was looking for.

There was something here, he could feel it. The clue was so close, if only he could find it.

He closed his eyes and let his senses take over. Something pulled his hands towards the driver's seat, towards the floor of the car by the pedals. He ran his hand over the rug and along the edges of the seat, then under the seat and along the backside of the brake pedal.

And then he found it.

It was a small button, made out of some material he did not recognize. It was smooth and shiny, and an iridescent blue-black.

And it felt…strange.

Michael slid out of the car and held the button in his hand, staring at it for a long time. He slammed the door of the car shut and walked quickly out of the compound. Leaning against the side of fence, he clutched the tiny object tightly and tried to figure out why he was drawn to it.

And then it happened.

_White. All white. Pain, unbearable pain. Lights flashing. The metallic taste of blood in his mouth, men appearing one either side, a strange smell in the air, some chemical. Burning on his skin, icy cold water and salty tears. Pain, unbearable pain. _

_White._

With a jolt, Michael wrenched himself from the vision and stared down at his hands in shock. His heart was beating frantically and he was gasping for air, trying to force oxygen into his struggling lungs.

"What the hell was that…?"

"Michael?"

Michael turned to see Maria leave the office and hurry towards him. She tucked a strand of hair behind one ear and regarded Michael with growing unease.

"Are you alright?"

Michael nodded slowly, unsure of whether or not he actually was alright.

"Did you find anything? Did I give you enough time?" Maria asked, glancing over at the compound where the deputy's car sat, then back at Michael.

Michael opened his hand and displayed the button. Maria lifted it from his hand and stared at it, watching the way the light from the streetlamp played across the surface in smooth ripples.

"What is this?" she asked, intrigued. Whatever it was made of, she had certainly never seen metal like this before. As she turned it in her hand, the material flickered from blue to black and then back to blue, and it seemed to absorb light and then spit it out in tiny bursts.

"I don't know," Michael said, his voice hoarse. "But I saw something when I held it."

"Like a flash?" Maria questioned.

Michael shrugged. "Like a vision," he replied. He took the button back from Maria and put it in his pocket. "Come on," he said gruffly, "I'll walk you over to the hospital, if you want."

Maria accepted the gesture and fell into step beside him. They walked for a block in silence, Maria tugging her coat tighter around her body as she shivered. The temperature was dropping, well, as much as it ever dropped in Roswell. But there was something else in the air, and unnatural coldness that seemed to linger.

And then Maria realized, with a start, that the coldness was coming from Michael. He was…troubled by something.

"What did you see?" Maria demanded, her eyes darkening with concern as she stopped faced the taciturn alien. "What was your vision like?"

Michael shook his head and tried to keep walking, but Maria placed her hand on his shoulder and stopped him.

"Michael? What did you see?"

Michael was silent for a moment, contemplating how to best answer that question. At last, he shook his head and said honestly, "I have no idea." Drawing a sharp breath, he continued, "But I never want to see it again."

* * *

"We need to talk." Sara wasted no time beating around the bush. She walked straight into Tess' room and over to the bed, then took a seat next to the other girl, her expression serious.

Tess glanced up at her friend and frowned. "Sure," she said slowly. "What's up?"

"You and Trudy," Sara said quietly. "Or, rather, you yelling at Trudy at the Crashdown."

"What about it?" Tess asked, narrowing her eyes.

"You shouldn't have done it,' Sara said simply. "She's your friend."

"She shouldn't have told me to forgive Liz," Tess snapped back.

Sara regarded Tess thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded. "No, I don't suppose she should have. But she did, and reminding her that Liz is the reason she and Kyle broke up was a low blow."

"I was upset," Tess spat, standing up and walking over to the window. "She should have just left it alone. It wasn't her business."

"Look, Tess, I don't care if you forgive Liz Parker or not," Sara said softly. "That is not my concern. But your temper has gone crazy these past couple days, and you need to get it back under control. Whatever it is you are upset about, don't take it out on Trudy."

Tess sighed and closed her eyes. "I wasn't taking it out on her," she tried to defend herself.

Sara raised an eyebrow. "Seemed that way to me," she replied.

"You don't know what you are talking about!" Tess hissed.

Sara walked over to Tess and stepped in front of her, staring directly into her startling blue eyes. "Then explain it to me," she demanded. "Tell me what it is I don't understand."

"Liz was…asking questions," Tess said. She was silent for a moment, then continued, "Jim is dating Amy DeLuca, and Amy got into a car accident. Liz started asking questions about what happened to the Hardings, and…she found out about all of it."

Sara accepted this in silence. It was a lot of information to take in, and surprising as well, because Tess rarely spoke about the Hardings. And the fact that Amy and Jim were dating…Sara grinned wickedly at that; Tess and Kyle must be so _thrilled_.

"Liz isn't in our circle of friends, Tess," Sara said at last. "Even when she was dating Kyle, she wasn't in our circle of friends. You don't want to forgive her, fine. You want to make her social life miserable, great. You want to yell at her every time you get a chance, be my guest. You want to be mean to her, go ahead. I'm not going to stop you, in fact, I'd applaud your efforts. Might even join in."

Tess managed a small smile at that.

"But Trudy is your friend, has always been your friend. She was sympathetic when you and Derek broke up in sixth grade, and she refused to talk to Cliff for three weeks after he called you a brat and a spoiled princess in eighth grade. And if you explained why you were upset at Liz, Trudy would have at least listened to your explanation before deciding to criticize your actions. And whether she is right or wrong in her judgment, you should not have lost your temper like that. You owe her at least that much."

Tess nodded. "I know," she said heavily. "I know."

* * *

"You broke into Hannigan's car?" Max paced back and forth across the living room floor of Michael's…house, while Michael watched him in moody silence. "You broke into the car? What on earth were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that there could possible an alien murderer in town and maybe we should do something about it," Michael snapped back.

"So you broke into a car that was parked outside of the Sheriff's station?" Max replied sarcastically. "Because that isn't dangerous at all. What is someone had seen you?"

"We waited until after all the deputies had gone home, and then Maria distracted the Sheriff," Michael defended himself.

"Oh, so you got Maria to break the law as well?" Max shook his head in disbelief. "Great. Just great."

Michael walked over to the sofa and threw himself unceremoniously onto the seat. "Look, it was risky and dangerous and probably stupid, I get that," he snapped. "But I didn't get caught, and I found something. So it couldn't have been that bad, right?"

Max nodded slowly, reluctantly, and said, "Fine. What did you find?"

Michael reached into his pocket and held out the button to Max. He picked it up and stared at it, and found he was hit by a strong sense of déjà vu. Staring at the strange material, he held his breath and tried to figure out what was so familiar about it.

"I had a vision when I was holding it," Michael said quietly.

"Of what?" Max asked, tearing his eyes away from the object and glancing over at Michael.

Michael got up and began to pace as he struggled to explain what he saw. "I saw…a lot of white. And I felt…pain. It was…I can't explain it, Max. It was… very… I was…" Words failed him, and he lapsed into a disturbed silence.

Max's eyes filled with concern as he stared at Michael. "What do you think it means?" he asked slowly. Michael didn't answer, and Max stared back down at the button.

Then the door slammed open, smashing against the wall, and a very drunk Hank stumbled into the room, clutching at the wall to stay upright. He glanced over at the two boys, his eyes lingering on Max for a moment. "Maaxth," he slurred. "Come to vissith Michaael?"

Max exchanged a brief glance with Michael, who had turned the moment the door opened, then quickly pocketed the button. He took a few steps closer to Michael, unsure of what to do.

"Don't knnnow why you goth friendth who vissith you, boy. Useleth, good-for-nothin…" Hank muttered to himself as he stumbled towards the sofa and sank onto the cushions.

"You should go," Michael said quietly, forcefully, pushing Max towards the door.

But Max was loathe to leave Michael alone with his drunk foster-father. "Why don't you come over?" he suggested, casting an apprehensive look at the very drunk man on the sofa. "I don't think Hank would mind." Or notice…

Michael shook his head. "I'm fine. You just go." It was not a request, but Max refused to back down.

"No, come on, we'll grab something to eat at the Crashdown," Max suggested. "I'll call Isabel, and she can join us. Just like we used to. It will be fun."

Michael rolled his eyes. "And watch you swoon every time Liz walks by? Thanks, but I don't want to lose my appetite."

"Michael…" Max protested.

But Michael simply shoved Max out of the house and slammed the door, using his powers to lock it before Max could react to what had happened. Then the moody alien turned and looked back at Hank.

"Getth me a biir, boyth," Hank drawled, his words indistinct.

It took Michael a moment to decipher the order, and when he did, he gave a bitter laugh. Shaking his head in disgust, he walked past Hank and into his room, slamming the door and locking it. If Hank wanted a beer, he would have to get it himself.

If he could actually make it all the way to the kitchen without passing out.

* * *

Isabel ran a brush through her hair with one hand, and leafed through the pages of her English textbook with the other. She was sitting on her bed, trying to wade through yet another boring reading from some old dead guy she whom wasn't that interested in anyway.

Her cell phone ran abruptly, breaking into the silence, and Isabel jumped at the chance to stall in her work. She answered the phone eagerly.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Isabel," came the somewhat hesitant reply.

"Hey, Alex," Isabel replied. "Where are you?"

"I'm at the hospital with Maria," Alex answered. "She wanted some company, and Liz is working at the Crashdown tonight, so I went instead. You know, to offer my support for her and all…" He stopped abruptly, realizing he was babbling.

"Oh, how is Ms. DeLuca?" Isabel asked. She knew Max had spent a lot of time at the hospital with Liz and Maria, but she herself hadn't been back since they first received the news.

"She's still stable and still hasn't woken up," Alex replied quickly. "But the doctors are optimistic."

"That's good," Isabel said, and then cringed. She sounded like an idiot.

"Anyway, I was calling to see, um, if you wanted to…well, you see, my band is playing at…"

"You're in a band?" Isabel cut him off, surprised. "I didn't know that. I mean, I knew you played guitar and all, but I didn't know you actually had a band."

"Well, it is all very informal," Alex explained. "It's called the Whits, and we just formed to practice a bit, but we're kind of good now. And we've got this chance to play at an open mike night at Crisco's, which is this little coffees hop on Main Street, kind of close to the Sheriff's office. We're playing tomorrow evening, for half-an-hour or so, and I was just…I mean, if you would like to come…" He sighed, realizing he was babbling.

Again.

Why did Isabel do this to him?

"Oh…tomorrow night?" Isabel frowned, wondering what to do. Stalling for time, she asked, "Are Maria and Liz going as well?"

"I don't know," Alex replied. "Liz was going to ask Max if he wanted to go, and Maria said she might depending on if her mother is doing any better."

Isabel gave a forced laugh. "If Max and Liz are going, but Maria stays, I'm going to be the third wheel all night."

"Well, we could call it a date, and then you wouldn't be…" Alex let the sentence drift off, his nerve failing him halfway through the suggestion.

"Oh…a date? That's sweet, Alex, but I'm not ready to…"

"Not a real date," Alex said hurriedly. "Just, uh, a fake date…we could pretend…so that you don't feel like a third wheel…" He silently cursed himself, could he sound any more pathetic?

"Riiight," Isabel drew the word out. "Um…okay, well, that sounds…nice." She bit her lip and tried to think of something else to say. Coming up blank, she asked, "So I'll see you in school tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Alex agreed quickly. Too quickly. "Tomorrow. And I can give you directions to Crisco's…"

"Okay, sounds good. I'll see you tomorrow." Isabel hung up the phone and rubbed her eyes, frowning slightly. That conversation had been awkward to say the least, and she was left with the feeling that, somehow, it could have gone much smoother.

There was a knock at the door, and then Max stepped into the room. Isabel placed her phone back on the bed and looked up at him curiously. She could tell by the grim expression on his face that something had happened, but she wasn't sure if it was something bad, or just something big.

"Michael broke into Hannigan's car," Max said without preamble. He drew the button out of his pocket. "He found this."

Isabel reached out her hand and accepted the small item. She stared at it curiously, then looked up at Max. "It feels…it feels like…"

"Yeah," Max agreed. "Exactly." He ran a hand through his hair and took a shaky breath. "It gets better," he continued. "Michael had a vision while he was holding the button."

"Of what?"

Max shook his head. "He couldn't say," Max replied quietly. "But it wasn't… I think it freaked him out."

"Did he say that?" Isabel asked, shifting her position on the bed so she was sitting cross-legged and staring at Max in worry.

"No, but with Michael, it's what he doesn't say that says the most," Max answered, and Isabel nodded in agreement with the statement.

"Did he see something like the war that Liz has been seeing?"

Max shook his head. "I don't think so. He didn't get a chance to explain much of it before Hank showed up…drunk."

"Is Michael okay?" Isabel asked in instant concern. "Did you invite him over?"

Max shrugged. "He kicked me out," he replied. "I waited outside for twenty minutes before leaving, but I didn't sense anything wrong. Well, other than Hank being so drunk he couldn't talk."

Isabel stood up and shook her head angrily. "Why won't he just leave?"

"And go where?" Max replied. "Alex was right, Michael doesn't have anywhere else to go. Hank is his foster father, his legal guardian, whether we like it or not."

"He could come here," Isabel protested. "If Mom and Dad knew the extent of how bad Hank is…"

"Michael would never agree to it, Izzy. You know that," Max said in defeat, and Isabel reluctantly nodded.

* * *

"Hey…uh…I wanted to…apologize…" Kyle stammered as he appeared in the doorway of Tess' room. She turned and looked up from her book, eyes widening slightly in surprise.

"What?"

"For what I said earlier…I know you care about Dad…obviously I shouldn't have, you know…all that," Kyle said.

Tess gave him a smile and stammered through her own apology, "Yeah…well…I shouldn't have…you know…been so upset with you about… everything. Even if you were being a jerk."

"So we're okay?" Kyle ventured.

"Yeah," Tess agreed. "We're good."

* * *

Next Chapter: Seeds of Suspicion 

Due: Friday 3/10


	24. Seeds of Suspicion

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Thanks to all who reviewed. I didn't know the name of Maria's father, so I gave him a new one. His name is now Sean Everett.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Three: Seeds of Suspicion

"You wanted to see me?" Trudy asked as she stepped into the office, clutching her backpack in one hand.

Ms. Topolski looked up from her desk with a smile. "Come on in, Ms. McIntire. Take a seat." She gestured to the chair opposite the desk, and Trudy sunk into it hesitantly. "Relax," Ms. Topolski laughed, eyeing the apprehensive look on Trudy's face. "I don't bite."

Trudy ventured a smile. "What did you want to talk to me about?" she asked. She had a fairly good idea what the conversation was about, and she didn't want to deal with it right now. The day had been awkward to say the least, because, although Sara assured her that Tess wasn't angry with her anymore, Tess had been avoiding her for much of the day, and that had started the rumor mills around the school. By lunch, almost every single person seemed to think that the popular clique was having a fall out, and she had gotten more than one sympathetic comment from people she hardly ever spoke to.

"Is everything alright?" Ms. Topolski asked. She leaned back in her chair and studied Trudy for a moment. "I won't lie, I've heard the rumors going around school. I just wanted to make sure that you weren't too upset by what had happened."

"Everything's fine," Trudy replied, her tone clipped.

"Have you spoken to Ms. Harding yet?" Ms. Topolski pressed.

"No," Trudy answered shortly. She looked down at her hands for a moment, unsure of what to say. Finally, she sighed and continued, "But I will soon. And everything really is fine."

Ms. Topolski gave her a knowing look. "Ms. Harding is not an easy girl to be friends with, is she?"

Trudy gave a dark chuckle. "No," she agreed. "No, she really isn't." She looked up at Ms. Topolski, her expression serious. "But she is one of my best friends."

"What was she upset at you about?" Ms. Topolski murmured.

Trudy shrugged. "Something stupid that doesn't really matter anymore. Sara told me that she's just upset because something happened that brought back memories of the Hardings' deaths."

"That must be a particularly painful subject for her," Ms. Topolski commented in a would-be casual tone.

"She doesn't ever talk about," Trudy answered.

"It was a car accident, right?" Ms. Topolski said, placing her hands on the smooth wood of the desk. "She was only seven at the time?"

"Yes," Trudy nodded. She didn't know much about what had happened, but she did know that Tess had only been with the Hardings for a little more than a year. "But I don't know anymore than that. Like I said, it isn't something she talks about much." Then she frowned slightly. "What's with the twenty questions?"

Ms. Topolski sighed. "You are a smart girl, Trudy. You're going places, anyone can see that. I don't want you to get distracted by all this. I've seen students devastated by broken friendships and I know how hard it can be."

"My friendship isn't broken," Trudy snapped, noting vaguely that Ms. Topolski was now calling her by her first name. She paused for a moment, then said, "Tess and I will talk and get over all this. It's not a big deal."

Ms. Topolski nodded and looked away. "Of course. I just wanted to make sure you were doing alright." She said it with the air of a dismissal, as though giving Trudy permission to leave, but the girl didn't move. She stared intently at Ms. Topolski, as though trying to figure something out.

"Why do you think my friendship is over? Did Tess say something?" Trudy asked at last.

"No, of course not," Ms. Topolski rushed to reassure the other girl. "I just know that Ms. Harding has, in the past, dropped friends completely, and I was worried…like I said, Trudy, you are a smart girl, and I don't want you to be distraught by…by whatever might happen."

"What do you mean, she's dropped friends?" Trudy asked. "Tess doesn't…" She let the sentence drift off, waiting for an answer.

"Well…" Ms. Topolski considered Trudy for a moment, then said, "I was under the impression that Ms. Harding had been friends with Mr. and Ms. Evans and Mr. Guerin when she was younger and now…" She didn't need to finish the sentence, Trudy understood the meaning.

"I don't think they were friends," Trudy replied, wracking her brain to come up with any memory where Tess had spoken of Max, Isabel, or Michael with anything more than utter disdain. She couldn't think of anything specific, although she did have a vague feeling that Tess might have once been friends with them.

Ms. Topolski sighed and said, "Well, look at this, I'm gossiping like a teenager. I'm sorry, Ms. McIntire, I think I've overstepped my line here. I just want you to know you can come to me about anything." The last statement was a clear indication that the conversation was over.

Trudy got up to leave. Ms. Topolski watched as the girl walked to the door and disappeared into the hallway. Then she turned and looked back at the window behind her desk. Through it, she could see the parking lot and all the student's cars, the yellow sun traveling through the cloudless sky, the distant horizon shimmering in the heat. She had planted a seed of doubt in Trudy's mind, and it would be interesting to see if anything came from it.

But somehow, it bothered Ms. Topolski to think about what she was doing. It bothered her, because she could not wrap her mind around the fact that Tess' parents had been murdered with a silver handprint, and that she had never heard even the slightest rumor about it. Why had Pierce kept it secret? Was it because he hadn't had any leads on it at the time, and he didn't want to bring up the fact that there was a case like this that he couldn't solve? Or was there something else? Something he didn't want people to know?

Why hadn't he told her?

* * *

"So…" Liz glanced around her room for a moment, biting her bottom lip and debating bringing up the subject that was currently driving her crazy. Max must have heard the worry in her voice, because he turned from where he was standing by the window and looked at her in surprise and confusion. 

"Everything okay, Liz?" he asked.

"I just…we never really talked about that flash I had," Liz said quietly, taking a seat on the bed. "I thought maybe you would want to discuss it."

Max sighed. "I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that I am supposed to be a leader," he admitted. "I mean, one moment I feel this…this something inside me, telling me that I'm supposed to make decisions and that it is my responsibility to protect everyone. And the next moment I'm just so confused about everything." He shook his head in frustration. "And now with this alien out there…"

Liz nodded slowly. "Well, you've got Michael, Isabel, and Tess to help you." She paused, and then added as an afterthought, "And you've got me, Maria, and Alex."

Max glanced over his shoulder at her and gave her a grateful smile. "I know," he replied, walking over and taking seat next to her. "But this is all new to me. Having people outside the four of us who know the secret. Having enemies, having another alien in town."

"Well, I'm guessing it's new to everyone else as well," Liz pointed out with a slight smile. "It isn't everyday you realize there are aliens living among you."

Max laughed at that and nodded. "And now Michael's had this vision," he said slowly, rubbing his tired eyes. "And I think it freaked him out."

Liz frowned, trying to picture what Michael would be like if he was scared. It was an emotion she had only seen his eyes once, after Max had healed her at the Crashdown. "What was the vision?" she asked.

Max shook his head. "I'm not sure. He's not sure. But whatever it was, it wasn't good." He leaned back on the bed, propping himself up by his elbows. "Michael is going over to Tess' tonight to tell her about it, see if she knows anything. Visions are more her thing."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, she and Isabel get visions. Michael and I traditionally don't," Max explained.

"A division along gender lines?" Liz asked with interest. "Maybe there is something genetic about female alien DNA…"

"You really are a scientist at heart," Max quipped, leaning in to kiss her. She smiled at him and returned the kiss.

"Yes, I am."

"Do you think it could be a genetic thing?" Max asked. "I mean, Isabel and Tess both had introverted gifts. Isabel's dream-walking and Tess' mind-warps. And Michael and I have more external gifts, my healing and his blowing up things."

"Is blowing up things really that helpful?" Liz questioned getting off the bed and stretching. "I mean, you said all of you can do it…"

"But only Michael can control it," Max replied. He shrugged at Liz's question and continued, "If Isabel, Tess, or I had tried to pull Amy out of the burning car, we probably would have ended up blowing up the entire thing and she would have died anyway. Only Michael has the ability to control his gift on a small enough level that he could pull off the door but not hurt the passenger inside."

"Oh…" Liz thought about that for a moment. She bit her lip again, then switched back to her original question. "So, about the flash I had…"

"Yeah?" Max asked, tilting his head to one side.

Liz paused, then asked the question that had been bothering her, the one she really wanted to know the answer to. "What do you think about you and Tess being…you know…together?"

Max raised both his eyebrow's in surprise. "I think it's ridiculous." He glanced at Liz, his eyebrow suddenly scrunching together in a frown. "Not that I am saying what you saw was wrong," he hurried on, assuming that the worried look on her face was a sign she thought he didn't believe her. "Obviously if you saw it, it must have been true."

Liz expression became more dismayed. "Okay," she murmured.

Max stared at her, thinking furiously. Obviously, from her reaction, she was not pleased with his answer. But if she wasn't worried about him not believing her, then what was she upset about?

"What does Tess think?" Liz asked, turning away and walking over to her dresser. She opened one of the drawers and pulled out a sweatshirt and yanked it on over her head.

Max hesitated, trying to figure out what the right answer would be. Finally, he opted for the noncommittal response, "I'm not sure. She isn't speaking to me much at the moment."

That seemed to cheer Liz up slightly, and with a sudden realization, Max figured out what the problem was.

"Liz, I don't want to be with Tess," he said matter-of-factly.

Liz looked at him sharply and then asked a question, which she realized, after she had said it, was incredibly stupid. "Are you sure?"

Max looked at her in incredulous surprise. "Of course I'm sure," he responded. "I know how I feel about her." He got up and walked over to Tess. "What brought this on?" he asked.

"Nothing," Liz muttered. At Max's disbelieving look, she sighed and admitted slowly, "She's pretty, and she's powerful, and she's popular, and she is your family." She dropped her gaze to the floor.

Max nodded slowly. "She is all those things," he agreed. "She's also frustrating as hell to deal with, icy and cold, short-tempered, and distant." He reached over and took Liz's hands in his own. "Liz, look at me." The brunette slowly lifted her eyes until she was staring at Max, apprehension written all over her features.

"Yes?" she breathed.

"Tess will always be there. She is my family, and whatever we had or didn't have in a different life, doesn't change the fact that she will always be my family."

"Max…"

"But I've _never_ wanted to be with Tess. And I never will." Max reached up and brushed a strand of hair away from Liz's eyes, the backs of his fingers gently grazing her cheek. "I want to be with you."

* * *

"I can't believe him. I mean, we have this moment, at least, I think it was a moment, and then he totally ignores it. I mean, we almost kissed! And I even helped him break into Hannigan's car. Would it kill him to acknowledge what happened?" Maria fumed as she stalked over to the booth Alex was sitting at and slammed his burger and fries on to the table. 

Alex frowned, shifting quickly to avoid the ketchup that slipped from the plate and onto the table. He reached for a napkin and quickly mopped up the red mess while throwing Maria a sympathetic glance. "Michael?"

Maria huffed and gave a sharp nod. "He didn't even talk to me today at school. Men are so stupid!"

"Hey!" Alex protested.

"You don't count," Maria replied, waving her hand and brushing away his protests. "You're like one of the girls."

"Oh…" Not entirely sure what to make of that, Alex looked around the Crashdown for a moment. It was mostly empty, which was unusual for this time of day. Normally it was packed with students who came by right after school, but there were only three other people in the diner. Switching subjects, he asked, "So, have you decided if you are coming to the show tonight?"

"I don't know…" Maria bit her lip and leaned on the table. "I want to stay with my mother. Now that my father is going to be coming to town and everything is going to get all screwed up, I want some alone time with my Mom. Even if she is unconscious for all of it."

Alex nodded. "Have you called your father yet?" he asked, hesitantly broaching the sore subject.

Maria shook her head. "I'm going to tonight," she replied. "I was going to do it yesterday, but I just…couldn't."

"If you wait until after the show tonight, I can be there with you when you call," Alex said softly, placing a hand on her arm. "If you need support, that is."

Maria gave him a brilliant smile. "You're so sweet," she said gratefully, "but this is something I've got to do on my own." She pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and sighed. "Besides, shouldn't you have plans with Max, Isabel, and Liz for after the show? I mean, everyone always wants to go out with the lead guitarist."

"I don't know," Alex said. "Isabel wasn't sure if she could come," he tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice at that statement but noted by the way Maria raised her eyebrows that she had probably figured it out, "and I don't want to be a third wheel with Max and Liz."

"That's too bad about Isabel," Maria said quietly, giving Alex a piercing look. She knew he had always secretly liked the statuesque alien, but had never had the courage to do anything about it. Before the shooting, the two had hardly ever spoken, let alone hung out.

Alex shifted uncomfortably, then sighed. This was Maria, this was one of his best friends, he could tell her everything. "She said she wasn't ready for a date," he admitted.

"You asked her out?" Maria demanded, suddenly ready to attack the taller girl for turning Alex down.

"Not exactly," Alex admitted. "She was complaining that if she went with Max and Liz to the show, she would feel like a third wheel. So I said she could say she was on a date with me, and she said she wasn't ready for that sort of thing, so I told her it was just a pretend date, not a real one."

Maria nodded slowly. "It's okay," she murmured. She glanced around the Crashdown, as though suddenly realizing that she ought to have been waiting on the other customers as well. Before heading off, she shot one last look at Alex and said, "You can do so much better than Isabel Evans."

"And you could do better than Michael Guerin," he called at his friend's retreating figure.

Maria paused in the middle of the diner and gave him an unreadable look. Each friend reached the same conclusion at the same time.

They could do better, but they didn't want better. That was the problem.

* * *

"What are you doing?" 

Isabel spun around in surprise and gaped at Michael. He was standing in the doorway to her room, leaning against the post, and watching with a slightly amused expression as she held out different shirts.

"I'm trying to figure out what to wear," Isabel replied. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Just a few minutes. Your mother let me in," Michael answered. He frowned at the shirts she was holding out. "Do you have a date tonight or something?"

"No, but Alex is playing at Crisco's, and Max, Liz, and possible Maria are going to hear him. I thought I'd join them," Isabel explained, turning away from Michael and grabbing another shirt from the bed. She held it up in front of the mirror and stared at her reflection thoughtfully, then shook her head. It wasn't the right one.

"Seems like an awful lot of trouble picking out different shirts if you are just hanging out," Michael commented casually. "Sure you aren't trying to impress anyone?"

There was something in his voice that made Isabel look at him sharply. A slight pink tinge appeared on her cheeks as she replied, "Don't be ridiculous. I just want to look nice."

Michael nodded, not entirely convinced and not entirely sure he liked where his thoughts were going.

There was a pause, then Isabel said, "Why don't you come with us? It might be fun."

"Thanks, but I can't. I'm heading over to Tess' to tell her about the vision."

"That isn't going to take all night," Isabel protested with a smile.

"Yeah, well…" Switching subjects, Michael asked, "Do you have the button that I got from the car? Max said he showed it to you, and I need to ask Tess about it."

Isabel frowned and nodded, gesturing to her desk. Michael walked over to it and spotted the button lying innocuously near a book about Shakespeare. He grabbed the object and pocketed it.

"Thanks," he said. "I'll see you later." And he turned to leave.

He was at the door when Isabel's voice called him back.

"Is everything okay?" she asked hesitantly. "Are we okay?"

"Of course," Michael replied, confused. "What do you mean? What would be wrong?"

Isabel paused, tilting her head to one side as she stared at her best friend. Finally , she shrugged and said, "You just…you've been distant lately. I just wanted to make sure everything was okay. I mean, I know the vision freaked you out, and I just thought maybe you'd want to talk about it a little?" When Michael didn't say anything, she turned and looked back at her clothes. "Never mind," she continued. "I'm just being paranoid. I'll talk to you later."

Michael nodded and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

* * *

"I'm going to call Dad," Maria murmured, sinking into a seat next to her mother's bed. "I have to talk to him now, and I don't know how. I don't know what to say. How am I supposed to do this?" She fingered the piece of paper Valenti had given her, the one with her father's phone number. "What do I say to him?" 

Amy DeLuca remained unconscious, oblivious to her daughter's inner turmoil.

"You need to wake up," Maria continued. "You need to wake up so that Dad doesn't have to come and I don't have to talk to him. You need to wake up and be okay because I don't know how to do this without you."

Standing behind her in the doorway, Dr. Drake watched the teenage girl as she spoke to her mother. This was always the hardest part, having to deal with the patient's family. Having to deal with the heartbroken and the lost and the bereaved. It tore his heart in two, and he found it difficult to believe that this girl could harbor any secrets that would bring the FBI out here.

And yet…

Drake sighed and slipped away, closing the door behind him. He knew what he had heard and what he had seen, and something was going on, some secret was being kept.

Maybe this girl's father would provide a clue.

Inside the room, Maria barely noticed the departure of her mother's doctor. She was lost in her own confused thoughts.

"I remember, in sixth grade, when you got so mad at me for kissing Alex. You said that if I was kissing boys at that age, I was going to end up like you, pregnant and alone." Maria laughed a little at the memory. Amy had been relaxed about so many things in her daughter's life, but not boys. Maria could only imagine what her reaction would be if she knew her daughter was harboring romantic thoughts about Michael Guerin.

"But then you relented and said that Alex wasn't like Dad, that he would at least stick around," Maria continued. "And I was only in sixth grade, and all I had done was kissed him, and you were already planning out my marriage to Alex."

Maria looked down at the phone number in her hand. "Why didn't you divorce him, Mom? He walked out on you, why didn't you…? Why did you stay with him? You haven't seen him in sixteen years!"

She had so many questions, and right now there was only one person who could answer them all.

She had to do it now, or she would never do it. Now or never, now or never.

Maria got up and walked out into the hallway, closing the door behind her and leaning against the wall. She took a deep breath and pulled out her cell phone. Ever so slowly, she punched in the numbers and held the phone up to her ear, her breath suddenly catching in her throat.

She listened to the ringing on the other end of the line. Her hand was clenched tightly around the phone, so tightly her knuckles had turned white. Every muscle in her body was tense, and her heart was beating rapidly. She held her breath as the ringing stopped and a voice answered.

"Hello?"

"Is this Sean Everett?" Maria asked quietly.

"Yes," came the response. "Who is this?"

Maria swallowed. "Dad? This is your daughter."

There was a sharp intake of breath at the other end of the line, and the reply, when it came, was wavering and unsure, "Maria?"

* * *

Next Chapter: Third Wheels 

Due: Friday 3/17


	25. Third Wheels

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Sorry for the lateness of this update, it was supposed to be done two days ago, and then it wasn't quite finished…

Chapter Twenty-Four: Third Wheels

* * *

"So…I wanted to say that…I, uh, I am…"

"I know, Tess."

Tess stopped mid-sentence and frowned slightly. She was talking to Trudy on the phone, attempting to apologize for how she had acted. It had been hard, harder than apologizing to Kyle. She wasn't used to being wrong, at least not among her friends. And no one else ever demanded that she apologize; she was, after all, the Ice Queen of Roswell High.

"What do you know?" Tess asked curiously.

"I know you are sorry," Trudy's voice replied, a slight laugh in it. "It's alright, don't worry about it." There was a pause, while Tess accepted what Trudy had said and Trudy tried to figure out how to best phrase her next question.

Finally, Trudy said, "I talked to Ms. Topolski. Actually, she talked to me."

"About what?" Tess asked, surprised. She had not ever pegged Trudy as someone who would speak to a guidance counselor about her problems.

"You, actually."

"What?" Tess asked sharply, instantly on guard.

"She heard that we had a falling out and wanted to warn me not to get too depressed if you stopped being my friend…" Trudy explained hesitantly, wondering how Tess was going to take this. There was a silence, so she pressed on, "She said you used to be friends with Max, Isabel, and Michael, and then you…something happened and now you…aren't friends."

"How does she know that? She wasn't here," Tess pointed out pragmatically, her mind working furiously as she tried to figure out what it was Ms. Topolski could possibly want.

"She was asking questions about the Hardings also," Trudy murmured.

Tess' heart leapt into her throat. "What did she want to know?"

"She just…I don't know, Tess. She was just asking a lot of questions," Trudy said at last.

Tess glanced up at a sudden knock on her window and frowned, shooting a quick, apprehensive look at her door. But Kyle was out with his friends, and Valenti was still at work, so there was no risk of anyone walking into the room.

"Trudy, I have to go. Can I talk to you in school tomorrow?"

"Sure," Trudy replied, her tone slightly surprised and suspicious. It was an abrupt ending to the conversation, and Tess had neither confirmed nor denied Ms. Topolski's comments. "See you then."

"Bye." Tess hung up and walked over to the window and pushed the shade to one side, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise at the person standing in front of her. "Not the alien I was expecting," she commented dryly as she opened the window.

"Got a minute?" Michael asked, not wanting to beat around the bush.

"Sure," Tess answered, her eyes narrowing slightly at the worried look on Michael's face. "What's going on?"

Michael held out his hand, and in his palm was the button. Tess reached for it, a strange sense of familiarity tickling at her mind as her fingers slipped over the smooth object.

"Where did you find this?" Tess asked, fingering the button.

"It's a long story," Michael replied, thinking back to the chain of events that had lead him to Hannigan's car.

"I'm listening," Tess answered simply.

* * *

"I can't believe I let him talk me into this," Isabel thought to herself as she carried three coffees back to the table. The coffee shop was filled with people, although whether that was because of Alex's band or because no one had anything better to do in Roswell, Isabel was not entirely sure. Either way, the place was packed, and Isabel, Liz, and Max had been relegated to a small table near the back of the room.

It wasn't that the table was small, or that the room was too warm, or that the coffee was horrible. It wasn't as though Isabel had anywhere else to be, and it wasn't as though she didn't want to hear Alex's band.

She just didn't want to be here with Max and Liz.

"Get a room," Isabel requested as she deposited the coffee's on the table, the dark liquid sloshing dangerously high in the cups.

Liz pulled away from Max, her lip stick slightly smudged, and had the decency to blush. Max gave Isabel a sharp look of annoyance and turned back to Liz. He was holding one of her hands with his own, the other resting on her thigh as he leaned in to kiss her again.

Isabel looked away in disgust. It wasn't that she had a problem with public displays of affection, which was good considering the entire coffee shop seemed to be filled with lip locking couples.

But this was her _brother_.

"When do you think Alex is playing?" Liz asked, breaking off her kiss with Max and glancing over at Isabel.

"I don't know," Isabel replied quietly, her gaze fixed on the stage. Liz frowned slightly at Isabel's slightly cold reply, but said nothing, and the three lapsed back into silence.

Isabel sighed and inwardly winced as she thought about how this night was bound to turn out. She would be stuck sitting here while Liz and Max made out, while the entire shop made out. A third wheel… She should have convinced Maria to come.

But the moment she thought about Maria, Michael's face came to mind, and she was still stung by the way he had so blatantly blown her off earlier that day.

"You look bored," a voice said.

Isabel turned sharply to see a man standing behind her. He looked to be a year or two older than her, and his sloppy blonde hair fell over sparkling green eyes. He was smartly dressed in khakis and a dark polo shirt, and he had a cup of coffee in one hand.

"Are you knew here?" Isabel asked. "I swear I know all the people around my age in Roswell."

"My name's John Harrison," the boy replied, extending a hand. "My parents and I are moving out to L.A., and we decided to take a detour through Arizona and New Mexico. My father's big into Native American stuff." He gave a lopsided grin.

"I'm Isabel Evans," Isabel replied, taking his hand. "And I'm not bored, just…" she gestured helplessly at Max and Liz.

"Your friends are otherwise occupied at the moment?" John finished the sentence with a slight laugh. "Mind if I join you?"

At that comment, Max pulled away from Liz and looked at Isabel sharply. The room was crowded enough that he could not hear everything this new boy had heard, but judging by the way he was leaning in towards Isabel, his hand resting next to hers on the table, there was no doubt in Max's mind that this guy was hitting on his sister.

His protective instincts flared. "Izzy?" he asked, raising his voice to be heard above the din. "Who's your friend?"

Isabel shot him a glare, having not been fooled for a moment by Max's seemingly innocent question. Turning back to John, she said in a low voice, "My brother's the protective type."

"Brother?" John laughed again. "Oh, that must be awkward, hanging out with your brother and his girlfriend."

"It wouldn't be so awkward if they would keep their hands off of each other," Isabel replied with a smirk. Inside, something started screaming at her not to make friends with complete strangers, but this boy seemed really nice, and she decided to throw caution to the winds. "Buy me a coffee?"

John shot a pointed look at Isabel's full coffee cup. "You've already got one," he remarked.

"Buy me another?" Isabel asked flirtatiously, leaning in towards him.

"Izzy!" Max's voiced was filled with censure now, and Isabel rolled her eyes in exasperation.

"Relax," John said, glancing over at Max. "I'm not going to corrupt your sister." He took the seat next to Isabel and asked, "So, do you know the band that's playing?"

"Oh, the guitarist invited me to drop by," Isabel replied casually.

"You know him?" John questioned, intrigued. "Are you guys…you know…dating?" His eyes flicked quickly to the stage where Alex and the rest of the band were setting up their instruments.

"No," Isabel replied quickly. "We're just friends."

"So I wouldn't be stepping on anyone's toes if I bought you that coffee you asked for?" Chris continued leaning closer to Isabel and giving her a brilliant smile.

Isabel stared up into his eyes, feeling almost as though she could get lost in them. "No…you wouldn't," she said softly, her voice lower than normal. "You wouldn't be at all."

"Alright, Isabel Evans," John said. "I'll buy you that second coffee then."

"Thank you, John Harrison," Isabel answered graciously. She looked up at the stage for a moment, then asked, "What do your parents do?"

"My dad is the West Coast manager of Montgomery International and my mom works in the public affairs department at the international headquarters for Prada," John replied.

Isabel gasped. Montgomery International was a trendy knew chain that had opened only a years earlier, and Prada was…well, Prada was Prada.

"Yeah, fashion runs in the family," John said, shaking his head in annoyance. "Since I was old enough to understand the concept of matching colors, my mother won't let me leave the house if I don't look _classy_."

Isabel laughed. "That must be so amazing though, having parents who work so high up in fashion." She frowned, then shook her head. "Or, at least, it would be if you were a girl."

John gave her a smile and shook his head. This girl was funny and beautiful and easy to talk to, and sitting with her beat sitting by himself and watching everyone else talk to their respective dates.

Isabel glanced down at her hands, sneaking a shy glance at John, who was now looking in the other direction. John seemed nice enough, and she didn't want to be a third wheel to her brother and Liz.

Behind them, Max and Liz had stopped talking long enough to listen to the conversation. Max was inwardly fuming at the way this guy had charmed his sister, and his hands were clenched into fists. He wished vaguely that Michael was here, between the two of them they could easily scare off this guy.

"He's only here for a few days, what could happen?" Liz whispered, knowing instinctively what was going through Max's mind.

Max glared at John's back but nodded at the truth in Liz's words.

Up on stage, Alex watched the interaction between Isabel and the strange man who had sat down next to her, and realized with a sudden jolt that he was the type of person who, to Isabel, would always be the friend, but never the boyfriend.

Just the third wheel.

* * *

Maria walked out into the hallway and glanced around. Her bloodshot eyes burned, having shed do many tears. Her voice was hoarse, and her throat thick, as though filled with cotton. There was a tightness in her chest that pressed in on her, making her claustrophobic.

She had just talked to her father for the first time in…ever.

"Maria?"

Maria spun around to see Dr. Drake standing there, leaning against the wall, regarding her with sympathy in his eyes. "Hey," she said slowly, forcing the words from her dry lips.

"Are you alright?" Drake asked in concern.

"Of course," Maria sniffed, wiping the back of her hand over her eyes. "I'm just a little stressed out right now."

"If you need anything, even just someone to talk to…" Drake let the offer hand in the air, half-hoping Maria would take it.

"Thanks, but I'm okay," Maria replied. "I've got my friends, and my Dad is coming to town soon."

"Really?" Drake raised an eyebrow. "I got the impression that your father wasn't really a factor in your life, or your mother's."

"He wasn't," Maria replied, "but he is now." She looked away and continued, more to herself than to the doctor, "He has to be."

"Is Mr. Guerin going to come keep you company?" Drake asked politely, forcing his tone to be casual. He didn't want to scare her away, didn't want to make it sound as though he was prying for information on them, but after doing some research on Maria and her friends, he had discovered almost nothing unusual about her past.

Almost nothing…

Michael Guerin.

The boy who had pulled Amy DeLuca from a burning car, and escaped with only a burn. They boy who had shown up by himself at the age of six, wandering around the desert, somehow miraculously alive. The boy who had been identified by eyewitnesses as one of the two who had run towards Liz Parker when she got shot in the Crashdown…

If Drake hadn't known better, he would have sworn this kid was Superman.

"Michael?" Maria frowned. "Why would he?"

"Well…he's been here a lot, and you seem like you need someone to talk to…" Drake gestured at her red-rimmed eyes. "I just thought maybe he would stop by."

"I doubt it," Maria replied somewhat bitterly. "He probably doesn't even remember that I was going to call my Dad today." She walked over to a chair and sank into, her expression drawn, her thoughts going back to her earlier conversation.

"_Maria?"_

"_Yes, Sean, it's me," Maria replied quietly, unsure how best to proceed._

"_How are you?" Sean asked, and it was evident he had no idea what to say either. "How's Amy?"_

"_She's in a coma," Maria snapped, her anger bubbling under the surface. "She's in a coma, and since you never bothered to divorced the woman you left sixteen years ago, you are her closest of kin." She spat the words out, hating that she had to say them._

"_Amy's in a coma?" Sean gasped. "How?"_

"_Car accident," Maria replied dully, her anger fading as quickly as it had come._

"_Are you alright?" Sean asked._

"_What do you think?" Maria shot back. Again, the anger fared, taking her on an emotion roller coaster ride._

"_Of course you aren't alright. I'm sorry, that was a stupid question. I'll be on the next flight out, Maria. I'll be there as soon as I can," Sean promised._

"_Lucky me," Maria replied coolly._

_There was a pregnant pause, then Sean said, "I never wanted to leave you two, Maria. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, and I think of you everyday…"_

"_You walked out on us, Sean!" Maria hissed. "You left Mom and I. I don't care how hard it was for you, I don't care if you missed us, I don't care if you wanted to stay, because you _didn't_. You are supposed to be my father and you failed! You don't get points for _effort_."_

"Are you sure you are alright? You don't want to talk about anything?"

Drake's words pulled Maria out of her thoughts, and she gave him a soft smile. "Yeah, I'm fine," she lied, knowing she would never be able to put what she was thinking and feeling into words.

Drake nodded, unconvinced, but walked away, and Maria leaned back against the wall, listening to the sounds of the hospital. The clicking of shoes on the floor, the scratchy noise emitted by the flickering lights, the constant buzz and crackle of the intercom… She didn't know how long she sat there; seconds, minutes, hours…

And then…

"Maria?"

Maria sat up and glanced around. She looked down at her watch and realized she had been sitting in the same spot for almost two hours. She yawned and shook her head, then glanced back at the alien in front of her.

"Michael? What are you doing here?" she asked in confusion.

Michael took a seat next to her. "You said you were calling your father today. I wanted to come by and make sure you were alright."

Maria felt a lump form in her throat and she looked down at her hands. "Thanks," she managed. "I'm…okay."

"Liar," Michael muttered, but he didn't press the issue. "Do you want to talk at all?" he asked quietly.

"No."

"Okay."

The two sat there in silence, each staring blankly ahead, lost in their own thoughts.

* * *

Next Chapter: Enter the Prodigal Father

Due: Fri 3/24


	26. Enter the Prodigal Father

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: I introduce a few more students in this chapter. I will be adding them periodically since there are obviously more than eight teens at Roswell High. Mostly they can be ignored, they'll just come and go as I need them.

Also, because this is AU, I have changed some of the things that happened on the show. One of those things is the entire thing with Atherton's Dome and Riverdog. Since Nasedo was in the white room for the past few decades, and only escaped now, he had no chance to do any of the stuff that he did on the show. So, although Atherton and Riverdog will show up in my story, it will not be in the same way that we saw them on the show.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Five: Enter the Prodigal Father

The man looked up from his suitcase and frowned, sure that he had heard footsteps in the hallway. He walked slowly to the door of his bedroom, trying to figure out who was out there. He lived alone in the apartment, and no one else had a key to get in.

He pushed the door open and stepped into the dimly lit hallway. A shadow moved at the end of the hallway and he called out, "Who's there?"

"Sean Everett?" the voice growled back, scratchy and almost inhuman.

"Y-yes?" Sean stuttered, backing away from the stranger.

The strange man stepped further into the hallway, into the light, and Sean gasped in surprise, realizing he was staring at a mirror image of himself. He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

"Sean Everett?" the man repeated, and this time his voice sounded more human, as though he was making an attempt to sound like the man he resembled. "Sean Everett?" he repeated, and by the third attempt he had managed to mimic his target's voice and tone.

Then there was a flash of light, and Sean's world faded to black.

The stranger stepped over the fallen body and into the room. He glanced at the suitcase and the plane ticket sitting on the bed and smiled to himself.

He was one step closer to his goal.

* * *

Maria grabbed her books and stuffed them into her backpack, glad to be done with yet another day of school. She had spent most of the day lost in thought, her mind running back to the conversation with her father. It had left her confused and unsure of herself, two things she hated being. She licked her dry lips and slammed the locker closed, leaning her forehead against the cold metal and wishing that somehow things could be different.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Maria almost jumped out of her skin as she twisted around and glanced over at Ms. Topolski. The guidance counselor was leaning against the far wall, her arms crossed over her chest as she regarded Maria with concern.

"I'm fine," Maria replied, lying through her teeth.

Ms. Topolski nodded, clearly not convinced. "If you don't want to talk about it, then obviously I won't force you to. But I don't think I would be a very good guidance counselor if I didn't at least make an effort to find out why you are near tears."

Maria licked her lips. "You know about my mother?" she asked slowly, pulling her backpack close to her chest.

Ms. Topolski nodded. "Of course. I am so sorry, Ms. DeLuca."

Maria nodded. "Thanks," she muttered. She closed her eyes and sighed. "I'm meeting my father for the first time today," she said. "I don't…I don't know how to act…"

"Would you like to talk about it?" Ms. Topolski asked gently. "My office is right down the hall, and my door is always open."

Maria impatiently brushed away a tear that was threatening to fall and shook her head. "I don't think I can talk about this. I wouldn't know what to say."

Ms. Topolski took a step towards the confused girl and placed a hand on her shoulder. "My parents divorced when I was pretty young," she murmured. "And I didn't really see my mother much after that. I know what it feels like, and maybe…maybe I can help you? You shouldn't go through this alone."

"I'm not alone," Maria sniffed, remembering how Michael had sat next to her in silence for three hours last night and listened to her cry. And Liz and Alex who called her every hour of every day to make sure she was okay and to see if she needed anything. "I've got my friends."

"I meant, you shouldn't go through this without an adult to help you," Ms. Topolski explained. "I know your friends are there for you, and they must be wonderful people, but you need someone older and…more experienced…who can offer you advice." She looked away and sighed. "At least, I did."

Maria nodded hesitantly. "I guess…"

"Come on, why don't we talk for a little bit," Ms. Topolski coaxed, leading Maria towards her office. Maria followed slowly, wiping the tears from her eyes as she did so.

* * *

"Who is that guy?" Sara demanded as she slipped into a seat next to Tess at the Crashdown. Jessica looked up from her onion rings and followed her friend's gaze, noting the mysterious stranger chatting with Isabel at a booth on the other side of the room. 

"I don't know," Jessica murmured, "But he's…wow."

"His name is John," Tess said, remembering everything that she had overheard in school. More often than not, she would end up taking seats relatively close to the other aliens, and today she had overheard Max warning Isabel about this boy several times. "John Harrison, I believe. His dad is some manager of Montgomery International and his mom works for Prada. He's in town for a few days."

"Where did he meet Isabel?" Sara wanted to know. "And why wasn't it me he met instead?"

"As fascinating as this girl-talk is," Kyle interrupted, dropping his books onto the table and taking a seat next to Sara, "Cliff, Chris, and I are going to join you now, so we are going to have to change the subject to one that does not make the three of us want to cut our own ears off."

"Hey, graphic much?" Sara complained.

"They met at Crisco's last night," Tess said to Sara, completely ignoring her brother and his friends. "I guess they hit it off quite well."

Sara gave a cool smile. "Well, if the guy is only interested in looks, Isabel can get anyone she wants," she replied disdainfully, although forcing herself to acknowledge Isabel's stunning beauty.

"Wait, you mean there is more to a girl than the way she looks?" Cliff asked in mock surprise. Sara reached across the booth and swatted him, laughing slightly.

"Jerk," she admonished.

"Seriously, though, I wonder why he picked Isabel?" Jessica cut in, shaking her head.

"Well, like you already said, she is good looking," Chris commented, earning himself a glare from all three girls.

"There is more to a girl than the way she looks," Sara snapped. "Isabel may be one of the prettiest girls in the school, but she isn't popular."

"Why not?" Kyle asked, not really caring to hear the answer but realizing that any attempt to change the subject would be completely in vain.

"She doesn't want to be," Tess said softly. All eyes turned to her, but Tess was staring across the room at Isabel, a strange expression in her eyes. "Isabel has the looks and personality to be popular, but she chose to be friends with her brother and Michael instead. She picked them, and that is why she isn't one of us."

"I didn't realize that you could pick that sort of thing," Chris mused. "I thought it just happened."

"You obviously don't know much about girls," Sara laughed.

"Where's Trudy?" Tess asked, changing the subject and glancing over at Jessica. "I thought she said she would meet us here."

"Oh, she and Jason got to talking about something after school, and Trudy said she might end up being late," Jessica replied carelessly, not seeing the look that flashed through Kyle's eyes.

Jason Chor would have been the captain of the football team, had Kyle not beaten him. He was runner up, and incredibly bitter about it. An all around golden boy, he was a straight-A student, and his parents owned about half the town, including several boutiques on Main Street, a hotel near the city center, and quite a bit of real estate.

"What were they talking about?" Kyle asked in a would-be casual tone.

Jessica, realizing her mistake, shot a helpless look at Tess, who bit her lip and shrugged in reply.

There was an uneasy silence, then Cliff reached across the table and grabbed Sara's hand. "Go to Homecoming with me?"

"Wh-what?" Sara stuttered, surprised by the sudden move.

"I think he just asked you to a school dance," Jessica said, rolling her eyes as she exchanged looks with Tess, who was trying very hard not to burst out laughing. Chris smiled slightly, and even Kyle seemed to have temporarily forgotten about Jason and was watching Cliff and Sara in anticipation.

"Homecoming isn't for two more weeks," Sara pointed out.

"I wanted to beat out all the competition," Cliff replied with a grin.

"There wouldn't be any competition," Tess countered. "Everybody knows you don't date the girl your friend has a crush on." She paused, then smiled innocently at Cliff. "Oh, was Sara not supposed to know that?"

Cliff punched Tess none to gently on the arm and she grimaced. Chris gave a short chuckle, Kyle and Jessica laughed, but Sara shifted uncomfortably, her face flushing a deep red.

* * *

Liz grabbed a couple of books of the shelves in the library and glanced over at Max. He was leaning idly against a bookshelf, reading a book on aliens. She blinked at the irony of the image and turned back to the books that she was looking for. 

They had to write a paper on a great scientific invention for history. She wanted to write on the microscope, but it was a difficult topic, and the Roswell public library did not have many books about. Not one to be deterred by a few bumps in the road, she had requested access to the University of Roswell library, which was bound to be better stocked.

She had not been disappointed.

The librarian had pointed her in the direction of three entire stacks of books solely about scientific inventions, and she had discovered quite a few about the microscope.

She was in the middle of reading about the electron microscope when Max came up to her and whispered, "Listen to this. 'It is doubtful that aliens would have the lung or brain capacity for survival on this planet.' Brain capacity? Brain capacity!" he hissed in outrage.

Liz stifled a giggle. "Who is that by?" she asked, glancing at the cover.

"Atherton," Max replied. "It's called 'Among Us.' Apparently he's got quite a following among the 'believers,' look at who has endorsed his book." He held it out to Liz, grinning.

Liz read the back cover, her eyes widening. "The National Association for the Protection of Abductees? True Believers? The Society for Alien Contact?" She glanced up at Max. "These organizations actually exist?"

Max nodded enthusiastically. "I'm going to check it out and show it to Michael and Isabel. They'll be appalled."

Liz laughed. "What does the book say about Atherton? Who was he?"

"Some guy from the early half of the century," Max replied scanning the author's biography. "Doesn't say much about him, just that he was obsessed with aliens. He used to be a professor of physics at a college in Texas. His obsession lead to his eventual removal from teaching by the university's academic board. He was disgraced, never taught again."

"Oh…" Liz sighed and closed her eyes. "Kind of sounds like Kyle's grandfather," she murmured. "He lost everything also."

Max nodded somberly, the carefree mood instantly ruined by Liz's comment, and continued flipping through the book.

Liz walked over to the alien section and glanced at the book titles, wondering vaguely how many other lives were ruined in a search for aliens. It was ironic, she mused, because while these alien hunts ended with disgrace for the hunters, they had the potential of ruining the lives on the hunted as well.

Nobody would win.

She frowned at another book title. "Understanding Atherton," she murmured, lifting the book from the shelf and opening it. She scanned through the first pages, then flipped idly to the middle of the book and began to read.

Max came up behind her and glanced at the book. "Anything interesting?" he asked heavily.

Liz shook her head wordlessly and flipped the page. Max's sharp intake of breath caused her to turn and look at him. He was staring at the page, his eyes fixed on a drawing in the center. It was a symbol, four circles. Each of the circles had another circle inside of it, and they were connected by two lines crossing each other to make a crude x.

"Max?"

Max reached out to touch the picture, his fingertips running over the symbol.

"Max?" Liz repeated. "What is it?"

Max shook his head wordlessly. "I don't know," he muttered at last. "I don't know."

Liz glanced at the book, reading the caption below the picture. "It says that Atherton claimed this symbol signified the presence of aliens." She glanced up at Max. "It alludes to some book he was working on when he died, one that never got published and was never found. They make it sound like the government hushed it up. A conspiracy theory."

"How did he die?" Max asked.

Liz shook her head. "It doesn't say," she replied. "But I bet we could find it online."

* * *

"So she blew you off for some wealthy, good looking guy?" Maria asked sympathetically as she paced back and forth across the floor outside baggage claim. She was waiting for her father to arrive, and Alex had offered…no, insisted…on coming with her so that she did not have to wait alone. She was grateful for his support, and unsure she would have been able to go through this alone. 

"Yeah, his name is John Harrison, his parents are big fashion people or something like that," Alex sighed, glancing over at Maria. She was terrified, he could see it in her eyes.

"Well, some girls just can't spot the good ones," Maria commented with a smile. It helped her to be talking about something else right now, to get her mind off what was about to happen, what she was about to face.

"How goes things with you and Michael?" Alex asked with a grin.

Maria shook her head. "I didn't see him at all today. I looked for him at lunch, but he wasn't around. I don't know if he even came…" She sighed and shook her head. "I don't get him!" she hissed in frustration. "One moment he is all kind and caring, and the next moment it is like he's forgotten that I exist."

Alex opened his mouth to respond, but a stream of passengers suddenly flooded into the room, and Maria turned away and looked through the crowd for her father.

A man made his way towards them. He had dark brown hair and brown eyes, and was dressed in slacks and a black shirt, a sports jacket resting over one arm. He was caring a briefcase in one hand and pulling a carry-on suitcase behind him in the other.

And he was walking straight towards Maria.

"Se-Sean?" Maria stammered, shooting a helpless and terrified look at Alex.

Alex shifted back and forth, unsure of what to say or how to act.

"Maria?" the man replied. There was an awkward silence, then Sean stepped forward and tried to hug his daughter. Maria stepped back and looked away, and Alex quickly intervened.

"Hi, I'm Alex," he said, extending a hand. "I'm one of Maria's friends."

Sean shook his hand and swallowed apprehensively. "Nice to meet you, Alex," he said, his eyes still on Maria.

"We should go," Maria muttered abruptly, and she turned and walked towards the parking lot. Alex gave Sean one last appraising look, then hurried after Maria. Sean hesitated for a moment, allowing himself a brief instant to savor his success, then followed the two teens out of the airport.

* * *

Author's note: As shown in the first part of this chapter, Sean is not actually Sean (seeing as the real Sean is dead and this is Nasedo). But, for the sake of clarity in the story, I am going to continue referring to Nasedo as Sean, because that is who everyone thinks he is. 

Next Chapter: Q&A

Due: Fri 3/31


	27. Q&A

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Thanks to all who reviewed. Any dialogue at the end of this chapter that sounds familiar was probably taken from '285 South' and I do not own it. Also, it might help to review who Jason and John are if you've forgotten. Jason is an 'enemy' of Kyle's, who is currently trying to make a move on Trudy, and John is the guy that Isabel met at Crisco's. And Sean is Nasedo pretending to be Sean.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Six: Q&A

Maria took a seat on the sofa and stared apprehensively at Sean. He was leaning back against a wicker-back chair, staring around the house quietly, his eyes taking in every detail. It was an almost appraising look, and Maria shivered, suddenly feeling as though he was looking for something.

Alex had left just a few minutes ago, although he had offered to stay around if she needed him. But Maria knew that this was a conversation she needed to have by herself, and she couldn't put it off any longer. So she folded her hands in her lap and, taking a deep breath, dove right in.

"Mom is stable, but still in a coma. The doctors don't know if she is going to wake up. They say she can wake up any time, but the longer she doesn't, the less chance that she will…"

"How long has she been in a coma?" Sean asked quickly, cutting in as Maria's voice began to shake.

"A few days," Maria replied. Had it really only been a few days? It seemed like a lifetime. "When the accident first happened, the doctors said they thought she would wake up in a few hours. But its been four days now, and they aren't sure…" She paused and looked away.

Sean nodded slowly, unsure of what to say next. "You could have called me earlier," he muttered at last. "I would have come."

"I wasn't going to call you at all," Maria replied harshly. She stood up and walked over to the window. "But you and Mom aren't divorced, so the legal issues…" Again, she was unable to finish the sentence. Spinning around angrily, she glared at her father. "Why didn't you divorce Mom? You left us! You walked out and…" Taking a deep breath, she reigned in her temper and said coldly, "You didn't care enough to stick around for my birth. Why didn't you just divorce then, since it is obvious that you had no intention of coming back?"

Sean shrugged helplessly, not knowing what to say. "I don't know…" he muttered, and Maria gave him a disbelieving stare. "It's complicated," he continued at last. "I don't know how to explain it to you."

"How does that even work?" Maria asked. "You aren't divorced, but you haven't seen each other in sixteen years. How do you do taxes?" It was a strange question, but she needed to focus on the small issues right now, because the larger ones were just to painful.

But Sean didn't answer. "Have you continued going to school?" he asked instead.

Maria nodded dumbly. "I have to do something to take my mind off of everything," she whispered, feeling the need to justify why she didn't spend every moment in the hospital by her mother's side.

"Is it working?" Sean questioned.

Maria gave a dark laugh. "Not really," she admitted. She licked her dry lips and sat down again. "So what do we do now?" she asked quietly, staring intently at the man before her.

Sean shrugged, his eyebrows scrunching together in confusion. "What do you mean?" He could tell that she was referring to something besides what they were going to do in the near future.

"I mean, how do we play this?" Maria elaborated. "Now that you are here… What happens now?"

"What do you want to happen?" Sean replied.

"Mom's dating again," Maria said abruptly. She eyed Sean, wondering if he would show any emotion to that statement, but he didn't. he just looked at her and nodded, and she frowned slightly, confused at his lack of feeling. In fact, he had shown relatively little emotion throughout the entire conversation, other than anxiety. She knew that he was probably just as nervous as she was, but for him to be so… impassive…seemed odd to her.

"Okay," Sean said simply.

"He's the town Sheriff," Maria continued. "He's also an only parent, his wife left a long time ago." She shivered and looked away from her father's gaze.

"He sounds nice," Sean replied with a nod. There was a tense silence while Maria stared at Sean in complete incredulity, then Sean said, "You probably have something to do now." He stood up. "I'm going to check into a hotel."

Maria blinked at the abrupt ending to the discussion and shook her head. "O-okay," she stammered. "Um…" she grabbed a piece of paper from the coffee table and scrawled a number on it. "This is my cell phone number," she said, handing the paper to Sean. He reached out and took it, then stared at the paper for a moment as though trying to figure out what to do with it. "In case you need to reach me," Maria said, shrugging. She waited, expecting Sean to give her his number, but he didn't. He put the piece of paper in his pocket and nodded.

"Thank you," he said, stepping forward to try and give Maria an awkward hug. She backed away quickly and shook her head.

"I don't think we are at the hug stage of our relationship yet," she said slowly.

Sean nodded, and once again Maria was struck by the lack of emotion on his face.

* * *

Isabel stared at the symbol on the open page of the book and shook her head. "It's so…" she couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't put into words what the symbol was. But it was definitely something, something familiar and foreign and terrifyingly powerful. She reached out and placed a finger on the paper, tracing the four circles and the x connecting them. 

"Yeah," Max agreed. "It definitely is."

Michael was sitting hunched over on the bed, Isabel and Max sat on the floor in front of the open book, and Tess stood by the window, staring out at the sky. The four of them had gathered together in Max's room to discuss the latest discovery. Liz had decided to stay behind at the library and research James Atherton in an attempt to find any clues as to what the symbol could mean.

"And he said this was proof that aliens existed?" Michael asked, staring at the symbol and shaking his head. "How?"

"I don't know," Max replied. "It makes allusions to a second book he was writing, but nobody has ever found the book." He glanced over at Tess. "What do you think, Tess?"

Tess turned and looked a him. "I think that there is an alien killer in town, that Michael had a vision about…about _something_ that terrified him," Michael opened his mouth to protest at that point but Tess shot him a glare and he lapsed, albeit ungracefully, into a moody silence, "and now we have this," Tess replied, gesturing to the book. "We need to be careful, there is too much going on."

"Things are getting out of control," Isabel agreed.

"This could give us a clue to where we come from, who we are," Michael pointed out, shaking his head. "We need to follow the lead."

"I don't know," Isabel murmured. "I'm all for finding out where we are from, but not if it gets us killed. We've been taking too many chances lately, and I don't like it."

"What chances have we been taking?" Max asked. "We've covered all our tracks."

"You healed a girl in a crowded diner," Tess replied dryly. "I'd hardly call that being careful."

"Tess, we've had this discussion…" Max started wearily, but Isabel cut him off.

"And that doesn't make it any less safe," Isabel pointed out. "Just because we've had the conversation… Tess is right, Max. We need to be careful."

"I'm not saying we shouldn't be careful," Max retorted, defending himself. "But this could bring us answers."

"Answers to what?" Isabel shot back, shaking her head. She stood up and began to pace back and forth across the floor, her footsteps sharp. "Who we are, where our home is?" She paused and turned to face Max, her face set with determination. "We've always known who we are, Max. We're different from everyone else, but we're still us and this is still our home and all the answers to our questions won't change that."

"Won't it?" Michael interceded swiftly, turning his gaze to Isabel. "Don't you want to know? Don't you want answers?"

"No," Isabel replied, shaking her head. "No, I don't." There was a silence in the room while the three other aliens looked at her, silently wondering why she would be so adamant against an investigation.

"Even with that shape-shifter out there?" Max murmured.

Isabel drew a sharp breath and swallowed the lump in her throat at the memory of the alien in the alley. She shrugged in defeat and took a seat on the floor again. "Fine, do whatever you want," she snapped. "Tell the entire world about us."

"Don't be ridiculous," Michael hissed. "We just want answers." He glanced from Isabel to Tess. "Isn't that what you want?"

"Is it worth the risk?" Tess replied. "I want to know as much as you do, Michael, but I'm not willing to take those chances. We have too much to lose."

"And think of everything we could gain," Michael said. He got off the bed and knelt down next to Isabel. "How can you not want that?"

Isabel shook her head and said, "Aren't you afraid of what we will find?" It was the fear that had plagued her for the past ten years. Most days she ignored it, letting it slide back into the far recesses of her mind. But some nights it came out in her nightmares, and some days it refused to leave her alone. What if they didn't like what they found?

"What is there to be afraid of?"

"I don't know," Isabel said, slanting a look at her brother. "That's what scares me the most."

There was another silence, then Max said, "Alright, so for now, let's do nothing. Liz and I will look into Atherton on the internet, but no one else makes a move on this investigation until we are sure that there is something to find. Something that we actually want to find. We won't take the risk of a wild goose chase right now."

Isabel nodded, slightly relieved. Tess gave Max a penetrating stare, before she too nodded her assent. Michael huffed and shrugged, unwilling to completely give in, but knowing he was outvoted.

* * *

"Hey, Valenti," Jason Chor greeted the jock as he passed him in the hall. "What's up, man?" 

Kyle shrugged, not wanting to exchange the usual greetings. The two always made a show of being nice to each other, despite the animosity, because it was important to the team, and football was such a team sport. But Kyle glared at the ruggedly handsome student in front of him, and he couldn't help but feel a surge of jealousy and anger as he remembered Jessica's words from the day before.

He didn't like that this guy had been talking to Trudy. He didn't like that Trudy had blown off a get-together with her friends to hang out with Jason. He didn't like any of it.

"Not much," he replied coldly. "I've got to get to class."

"Yo, man, what's the problem?" Jason asked, a smirk on his face. He knew perfectly well what the problem was, and it amused him to know end that he could rile up the normally calm football captain by something as simple as talking to the wrong girl.

Kyle gritted his teeth and replied, "Nothing. Just didn't get much sleep last night."

"That's too bad," Jason commiserated. "But sometimes strange things do keep you up an entire night." He was staring at something just over Kyle's right shoulder, and Kyle turned to see Trudy standing next to Tess' locker, talking to the other girl. Tess said something, and both girls suddenly burst into a fit of giggles.

Kyle glanced over at Jason. "Stay away from her," he growled.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Jason replied smoothly. "Stay away from who?" He gave Kyle another smirk and walked away.

Kyle waited until Jason had rounded the corner of the hallway and disappeared from sight, then he turned and slammed his fist into the nearest locker, wincing as the impact bruised his knuckles.

* * *

"So he was a little emotionless," Alex said with a shrug, watching as Maria lifted her books out of her bag and placed them in her locker. "He's probably just as nervous about all of this as you are." 

Maria slammed the locker door shut and glanced over at Alex. "Maybe," she consented, "but he still seemed so…cold." She and Alex started walking in the direction of their class. It was history, and not a subject that particularly interested Maria. Especially since the teacher had announced that they were going to start a new project, and he was giving out the assignments today.

"Just give it some time," Alex advised. "Just give him some time."

Maria nodded and walked into the classroom. She glanced around, noting that Liz and Max had taken seats near the front. She didn't want to sit at the front, so she slipped into a seat in the back and smiled gratefully at Alex when he did the same. Tess, Kyle, Trudy, and Cliff filed into the room and took seats near the back. A few moments later, Isabel came in through the door as well. She met Alex's gaze for a moment, then looked away and walked to the front of the room, taking a seat near her brother.

"So things with you and Isabel aren't going to well, huh?" Maria remarked, glancing over at Alex.

He shook his head wordlessly and shrugged. "She's still seeing that John person."

"He's only here for another day or two, she can't actually be dating him," Maria replied reasonably. "And once he leaves…"

"I can be a last resort?" Alex finished the sentence. He rolled his eyes. "Lucky me."

"That wasn't what I meant," Maria retorted, shaking her head.

Before Alex had a chance to reply, the teacher was speaking. "Alright, class," he said, drawing everyone's attention towards him. He shifted into lecture mode, his voice changing into a slow monotone. "Everybody has their secrets. No one is exactly who they appear to be, and it the job of the historian to discover these secrets, and the extraordinary qualities that linger beneath the skin."

Isabel and Max exchanged looks.

"For this assignment," the teacher continued easily, "I've put you all into pairs. It is your job to ask certain questions and write up a

Isabel frowned and raised her hand. "Isn't that sort of personal?" she asked, clearly not liking the idea.

"Exactly," the teacher agreed. "You want personal. Personal is the friend of the biographer. Personal is what gives the history a human element, makes it interesting." He turned away and grabbed a stack of papers from his desk, then began handing them out to the class. "Here is a list of questions that you should ask your partner. And the last page of the questions has a list of who will be partnered with whom."

There was a rustling of paper as the entire class flipped anxiously to the last page to see who they had been partnered with.

Tess ran a finger down the page, reading the names. Maria had been paired with Michael. She looked around the classroom and frowned. Michael wasn't even here today, Maria was going to have some trouble tracking him down.

Further down the list, Tess noticed with a smirk that Kyle had been partnered with Liz. To her right, Trudy seemed to have reached the same place on the list, because she stiffened perceptively and shot a look at Kyle out of the corner of her eye.

Alex and Isabel. Tess glanced back to the corner of the room where Alex was sitting, and noted the displeasure on his face. It was more than obvious to Tess that Alex had feelings for Isabel, but she wasn't sure if the feelings were returned. After seeing Isabel with John, Tess wasn't sure what the alien girl felt for Alex at all.

Tess stopped at her own name and glanced at the person she was partnered with.

Max.

Great. She flipped the paper over and glanced up at Max. He was staring at her quietly, and she gave him a bitter smile.

This was going to be one incredibly long project.

* * *

Ms. Topolski glanced up from her desk and smiled at the man standing in the doorway. "Steve," she said gesturing for the history teacher to come in. "How are you? How did the project go today?" 

"Very well," he replied, taking a seat across from the guidance counselor. "Thanks again for your suggestion. These questions are so insightful."

"Oh, it's my pleasure," Ms. Topolski replied, waving the thank you aside. "As you know, I did my graduate thesis on the importance of oral history in psychology." She paused and glanced down at the papers on her desk, then asked casually, "So, did you pair up the students the way I suggested?"

"Oh, yes. It should prove quite interesting."

Ms. Topolski nodded. "Sometimes you end up with the most revealing details, just by putting the right people together."

* * *

Next Chapter: Conversations I'd Rather Not Be Having 

Due Date: Not really sure, hopefully within the next couple weeks. I have a really hectic workload, and I think this next chapter is going to be longer than usual, so it may take a little while to get it finished. But it will hopefully be out by two weeks from today (I believe that is 4/14). Sorry that I can't give a more precise date.


	28. Conversations I'd Rather Not Be Having

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Author's note: Some of the questions-and-answers are taken directly from the show, some are ones that I made up. If you recognize any of the dialogue, chances are I don't own it. CPS stands for Child Protection Services. It is the organization that oversees the protection of all minors, especially those in foster care, against any form of abuse.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Conversations I'd Rather Not Be Having

Tess dropped her books on to the table next to Trudy and snapped, "Max Evans. I'm partnered with Max Evans!"

Jessica quickly disguised her laugh as a cough and looked away when Tess glared at her angrily. Trudy offered a commiserating smile and said, "Well, its not that long of an assignment. Just a bunch of questions."

"Personal questions," Tess retorted, shaking her head. She sunk into her seat and rubbed her eyes tiredly. "Personal questions I really don't feel the need to discuss with Max." She looked around for a moment, then asked, "Where's Sara?"

Jessica snickered while Trudy answered, "She and Cliff are having a 'private lunch.'" She jerked her head across the quad, and Tess turned to see Sara and Cliff sitting alone under a tree. Sara was leaning against Cliff's side, laughing at something he had said, and Cliff was staring at her with a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

"They sure move quickly," Tess commented with a smirk.

"They look good together," Jessica answered.

Before either Tess or Trudy could reply, Kyle and Chris appeared at the table. "Mind if we join you lovely ladies?" Kyle asked, then took the seat next to Tess without waiting for a reply.

Tess glanced down at Kyle's hand and frowned. "What happened?" she asked, nodding to the bruises on his knuckles.

Kyle shrugged uncomfortably and said nothing. Chris, dropping into a seat across from Tess, replied for his friend, "Oh, Kyle had a minor disagreement with a locker."

Tess raised an eyebrow. "You punched a locker?" she asked skeptically.

"Oh, did the locker upset you?" Jessica asked sweetly. Kyle glared at her, but she just smiled back and shrugged. "Sometimes lockers can say the meanest things," she continued, and Tess and Trudy both struggled to keep a straight face at Jessica's antics.

"So…" Kyle turned to Trudy. "I hear you and Jason hung out last night." His tone wasn't quite accusatory, but there Trudy stiffened anyway. Tess glanced at Kyle, then down at the bruises on his hand, and frowned slightly as realization appeared in her eyes. Chris and Jessica held their breath, waiting for Trudy's response.

Trudy nodded. "We talked," she admitted. "I'm sorry I missed out get together at the Crashdown. Did anything eventful happen." She glanced across the quad. "Besides Cliff and Sara, that is."

"Not really," Chris cut in before Kyle had a chance to reply. "Kyle, Cliff, and I spent a while listening to Jessica, Sara, and Tess discuss popularity, and the guy that Isabel Evan's is dating, and other girl things like that."

"Sounds like you had a great time," Trudy laughed.

"Would have been better if you were there," Kyle said stonily. Tess shot him an annoyed glare, but he ignored it and looked down at his food. "I mean, you said you were going to come."

"Like I said, I'm sorry I missed it," Trudy answered coolly. "But Jason and I were having a good time, and…"

"You were having a good time?" Kyle interrupted harshly. "Doing what?"

"Talking!" Trudy snapped, flushing red at the implied accusation.

Kyle shot back bitterly, "I'm sure Jason wanted to do a lot more than just talk."

"Kyle!" Tess hissed a warning at her brother.

"If you got this paranoid every time Liz talked to another guy its no wonder she broke up with you," Trudy snapped.

There was a dead silence as all eyes stared at Trudy in disbelief. She had ever reason to be mad at Kyle given the way he was acting, but that blow had been below the belt. Trudy, however, now scarlet with embarrassment and fury, ignored everyone's stares. She jumped to her feet, grabbed her belongings, and stalked away.

"Oh, well done, Kyle," Jessica snapped at the jock as she too jumped up and hurried away after Trudy. Kyle stood up, slammed his books back into his bag, and stormed off, leaving Tess and Chris alone at the table.

Tess glanced back and forth between Trudy's and Kyle's disappearing figures, torn between whom to comfort. As she sat there, unsure of what to do, Chris leaned across the table, took her hand, and asked, "So is this a bad time to ask you to go to the Homecoming Dance with me?"

Tess blinked. "What?" she asked, surprised. "Oh…Yes… I'll go with you," she replied, completely flustered. She blushed, her cheeks turning slightly pink as a smile crept onto her features. "I'd like that."

"Okay," Chris said simply. He stood up. "Well, I know that you have to either run after your friend or your brother, so I'll let you get to that." He gave her one last smile, then turned and walked away.

Tess sighed and stood up, running a hand through her hair. Then she grabbed her bag and set off after Kyle, unsure whether she was going to sympathize with him or yell at him for his stupidity.

* * *

Michael stared at the book, running his hand over the page. The symbol stared back at him, and he shook his head in frustration. The answer to all their questions could be here, and no one was willing to look into it. He couldn't understand why Max, Isabel, and Tess didn't want to know the truth. 

He glanced at the clock on the wall. It was a little after two, so school would have just gotten out. He stood decisively, stuffing the book into his backpack, and walked towards the door. Max and Isabel would be at the Crashdown now, and maybe if he talked to them again…

It was pointless. He knew it was pointless, but with the answers so close, he couldn't just give up.

He opened the door and stopped short, surprised to see Maria standing on his doorstep, her fist raised in preparation to knock. She seemed surprised to see him as well, and it took her a moment to lower her arm.

"What are you doing here?" Michael demanded.

"We're partners," Maria replied, holding up the question-and-answer assignment. "We have to ask each other these questions and write a brief essay on what we discover about the other person."

"What?" Michael asked, uncomprehendingly.

"It's for class," Maria snapped, rolling her eyes. "It's a homework assignment, one that I don't want to fail."

"I'm not answering a whole bunch of stupid questions about myself," Michael said dismissively. He stepped past Maria and walked out of the trailer towards the street. Maria followed behind him, clearly frustrated by his lack of caring, but he ignored her.

"What is wrong with you?" Maria questioned. "We need to do this assignment." She glanced down at the paper. "Here, just…what's your favorite ice cream flavor?"

Michael shrugged. "Get lost," he retorted, continuing away from her. He paused next to her car and stared at it for a moment, a contemplative look on his face. Then he turned sharply to Maria and asked, "Why were you out around this part of town anyway?"

"I have to drop something off at the lift-off gas station," Maria replied. "Your…house… was on the way."

"The station near the highway?" Michael asked curiously, glancing over at Maria.

"Yeah. Why?" Maria frowned at Michael.

"Give me a ride?" Michael requested. Maria stared at him blankly, so he pressed, "Give me a ride and I'll answer your stupid questions, okay?"

Maria stared at him for another moment, then nodded. "Okay, get in," she replied. Michael climbed into the passenger seat, dropped his backpack into the back of the car, and watched in silence as Maria slipped her seatbelt on and turned the key in the ignition. Then she paused and frowned, glancing over at Michael. "If you drive, it will be easier for me to write down the answers to the question."

Michael shrugged. "Sure, whatever," he agreed, switching seats with her.

Maria glanced down at the paper. "Okay, what's your favorite ice cream flavor?" she asked as Michael drove the car out of the trailer lot.

"Pistachio."

Maria nodded and scribbled it down on the paper. "Okay, who is your favorite relative?" Michael glanced over at Maria in disbelief, and Maria snapped, "Keep your eyes on the road." She looked back down at the paper and sighed. "Okay, so you don't have a favorite relative."

"I don't have relatives at all," Michael muttered as he swerved in front of another car.

"Hey, watch it," Maria hissed as the other car honked. "What's your favorite television show?"

"The View," Michael replied without pausing.

"Okay, you can't just make up answers," Maria admonished, glaring at Michael.

"Who said I'm making them up?" Michael shot back.

"You do not watch The View," Maria replied, shaking her head in frustration.

"Keeps me in touch with my feminine side," Michael deadpanned.

Maria rubbed her eyes and sighed. "This is so not worth it," she mumbled. "I should have just failed the project."

"Fine," Michael retorted. "Stop asking me those stupid questions, then."

"Oh, you are not getting off the hook so easily." Maria said stiffly, glancing back down at the paper and searching for a good question. "Oh, here's one. What's the best thing that ever happened to you?"

Michael didn't reply for a moment, then said quietly, "Meeting Max, Isabel, and Tess."

Maria was silent, unsure of what to say, then quickly scribbled down the answer. She bit her lip and read down the list, looking for an easy question. "Favorite book?" she asked at last.

"James Joyce. Ulysses," Michael replied.

"Oh, you have not read Ulysses," Maria objected, slanting a look at Michael. "There is no way you have read that."

"'What incensed him the most was the blatant jokes of the ones who pass it all off as a jest, pretending to understand everything and in reality not knowing their own minds.' Page 655." Michael hesitated, then shook his head. "You wouldn't understand."

Again, there was an uncomfortable silence, then Maria asked diffidently, "If you can quote Ulysses, why do you fail all of your classes?"

"And what number is that?" Michael replied snidely.

Maria rolled her eyes. "It's my own personal question," she explained.

"I don't answer personal questions," Michael said shortly, swerving in front of yet another car. Maria twisted in her seat and glanced back at the car as the driver honked at them, but Michael didn't pay the other car the slightest bit of attention.

"Fine, maybe it is the answer to this question; what are you afraid of?" Maria replied. She glanced over at Michael, who was staring straight ahead, refusing to meet her gaze. "I'm waiting for an answer."

"This is stupid," Michael ground out the words, shaking his head. "I'm not answering personal questions," he repeated.

"Why?" Maria asked quietly, sincerely. "What _are_ you afraid of?"

Michael didn't answer. Instead, he ran the red light in the intersection and pulled the car into the parking lot of the gas station. "Here you are," he announced shortly.

Maria sighed and opened the door of the car, then walked around to the back to pull open the trunk. One of the attendants walked over to take it from her. He gave her a smile which revealed everyone one of his perfect white teeth.

"Afternoon, ma'am."

"Hey," Maria greeted, glancing at the man appreciatively. He was wearing slightly dirty overalls and had a mechanics rag in his back pocket. He had clear blue eyes and freckles, and a well built body. He lifted the box from Maria's trunk easily.

"Impressive," Maria murmured with a small smile.

The attendant winked at her and said, "If you step inside the station, ma'am, we can settle the bill on this."

Maria gave him a flirty smile. "Sure thing," she replied. She glanced back at Michael, who was staring at her in disbelief, his hands clenched tightly on the wheel. "I'll be right back."

Michael watched her go, his eyes darkening. Then he turned and glanced back at the car. The tank was almost empty, and he was going to need a lot more gas to get anywhere. Reaching into the back, he grabbed his backpack and pulled out _Understanding Atherton_. Flipping to the first chapter, he skimmed through the information until he found what he was looking for. Running his finger along the sentence, he smiled grimly. Atherton was from Marathon, Texas, and any clues to how he had discovered this strange symbol were probably still hidden somewhere in his house.

Michael dropped the book onto the seat and got out of the car. He walked around to the other side and unscrewed the tank cap, then began to fill the car up with gas. He glanced back at the station several times, peering through the window. Maria was still standing at the desk, talking to the attendant.

He finished filling the tank and replaced the cap, then climbed back into the driver's seat at the same time that Maria came walking towards him. She leaned against the hood of the car and smiled brightly.

"Nice guy," she commented, jerking her head towards the station attendant.

"He works at a gas station," Michael growled.

Maria rolled her eyes. "Doesn't mean he isn't a nice guy," she replied.

Michael glared at her and turned the key in the ignition, preparing to pull the car out of the lot. Maria jumped as the engine roared to life and stared uncomprehendingly at Michael. "Your stealing my car!" She scrambled into the passenger seat.

"I'm borrowing your car," Michael replied stoically. "Now get out."

"You're telling me to get out?" Maria demanded in disbelief as she buckled her seatbelt. "This is my car!"

Michael shrugged. "Fine, you had your chance," he said simply as he pulled out into the street and directed the car towards the onramp onto 285 South.

"You're kidnapping me?" Maria gasped. "No, wait, you're abducting me!"

* * *

"So, when do you want to do these questions?" Alex asked as he displayed the assignment to Isabel. 

Isabel glanced up from the booth and gave Alex a smile. "How about tonight?" she suggested. "I'm meeting John in a few minutes."

As if on cue, the door to the Crashdown swung open, and the man in question walked through. He spotted Isabel and flashed her a bright smile, making his way over to her booth.

"Hey, Izzie," he said, and Alex did a double take at his informality. He was calling her Izzie?

Isabel scooted over and gestured for John to take the seat next to her. John sat down and glanced up at Alex. His eyes narrowed for a moment as he tried to figure out why Alex looked familiar, then he snapped his fingers and said, "You were playing at Crisco the other night, weren't you?"

"Yeah, that was me," Alex replied quietly.

"Nice job," Alex complimented. He looked back and forth between Isabel and Alex, seeming to realize that they had been talking before he arrived. "Am I interrupting something?"

"What?" Isabel turned to him in surprise. "Oh, no. Alex and I have a project to work on and we were just planning when we were going to meet," she explained. Shooting Alex a look, she continued smoothly, "Tonight?"

"Tonight," Alex agreed. "How about around 6:30? We can have dinner here."

"Okay," Isabel agreed. She turned away from Alex, completely dismissing his presence and smiled at John. "How was your day?" she asked. "Did you find anything to do in this boring town?"

Alex sighed and turned away, defeated. He walked across the diner towards Liz. She was leaning against the counter and glancing around in confusion. As Alex approached, she swung around to look at him and asked, "Have you seen Maria? She was going to come to work after she dropped a box off at the gas station, but she's late."

"Maybe she went to the hospital or to talk to her father," Alex suggested.

Liz nodded quietly. "Have you met her father?" she asked.

"Sean? Yeah, I went with Maria to pick him up from the hospital. Why?"

"What's he like?" Liz pressed.

Alex raised an eyebrow. "You could go meet him and see for yourself," he replied.

Liz nodded. "I know, I just haven't really…"

"Been able to make the time for your friends?" Alex supplied helpfully.

Liz blinked at the bitterness in his tone. "Are you alright?" she asked, confused. Her gaze flickered over to Isabel. "Did Isabel say something to you?"

"No," Alex replied. "All I said was that you haven't been around much for Maria." He paused, then continued, "And I haven't really seen you either."

Liz bit her lip. "I am around," she replied, although there was some reservation in her voice. "I hang out with you guys at school."

"Yeah, if Max isn't there to eat with you," Alex shot back angrily. "And the fact that you haven't met Maria's father goes to show that you've been spending less time with us. Ever since you and Max started dating its like we don't see you."

"What's gotten into you?" Liz asked in annoyance. "Are you sure Isabel didn't say something? Because you're acting…"

"This isn't about Isabel," Alex said in exasperation. "I'm just stating what I think."

Liz nodded. "I get that. You just seen… I don't know… angry." She looked down at the order pad in her hand and flipped through the pages carelessly while trying to organize her thoughts. Finally, she said slowly, "I know I've been a little distant lately. But… Look, I've got three more friends now. And I'm not trying to ignore you and Maria, but it isn't just the three of us anymore."

Alex shrugged. "Fine," he said. "I just think you should hang out with Maria a little more often. She needs her best friend right now." He turned and walked away, and Liz stared after him with a pensive expression on her face.

She was jolted out of her thoughts as the door to the Crashdown swung open and Kyle and Tess walked in, trailed by Max. Tess was talking angrily to Kyle, who appeared to be short tempered and upset about something.

"…if you hadn't been so stupid!" Tess snapped.

"Oh, so this is my fault?" Kyle retorted. "She's the one who brought up the entire thing with Liz."

"Which was uncalled for," Tess admitted with a nod. "But you can't blame her for being upset when you are attacking her for hanging out with Jason."

"The guy's a creep," Kyle hissed, storming over to a booth and sitting down. Tess followed him and stood at the edge of the table, resting her hands on the plastic surface. Max stood a few feet behind her, clearly not wanting to get involved in the argument.

"Don't you think you should let Trudy decide that one?" Tess replied pointedly. "If she wants to talk to other guys, you can't stop her. She isn't your girlfriend anymore, and even if she was, she wouldn't let you control who she hangs out with."

"But it's Jason!" Kyle replied with a glare. He paused for a moment, then admitted reluctantly, "Maybe I overreacted." Tess rolled her eyes and Kyle continued hastily, "She still shouldn't have said what she did about Liz." He turned away from Tess and stared at the table in brooding silence, and the blonde alien, realizing she wasn't going to get anywhere else with the conversation, turned and looked at Max.

"Come on, let's get this over with," she spat, stalking over to her own table.

Max sighed and pulled out the paper with the questions on it. Across the diner, Liz gave him a sympathetic look, which he returned with a grateful smile. Then he crossed over to Tess' table and sunk into a seat.

"Alright, number one. What's your favorite ice cream flavor?" Max asked.

"Daiquiri ice," Tess replied. "Yours?"

"Chocolate," Max answered as he scribbled down Tess' response. "Uh…favorite television show?"

"Buffy. You?"

"The X Files."

"Okay, that's just pathetic," Tess muttered, writing down the answer.

"What's wrong with the X Files?" Max demanded.

"First of all, it's a girls' show," Tess replied haughtily. "And secondly, its… so clichéd."

"Whatever," Max replied. He looked down at the paper. "These are boring. Let's get to the good ones. Do you have any dreams?"

"To get out of this horrible little town," Tess replied icily. "You?"

Max frowned. "We can't leave, Tess," he whispered, lowering his voice. "Not until we have answers. Not until we know it's safe."

Tess rolled her eyes. "I'm not leaving now, Max. We're sophomores. Don't you think this conversation is a little premature?"

Max didn't look entirely convinced, but he shrugged and said, "Well, I don't know… I guess I want to go to a good college and have a good job and a family and all that."

Tess nodded. "Boring," she murmured. "How about this one. Have you ever been in love?"

Max hesitated and glanced over at Liz. She was standing with her back to him, but turned as though able to feel his gaze, and met his eyes questioningly. Turning back to Tess, Max answered, "I'm not really sure."

Tess raised an eyebrow and twisted in her seat to look at Liz. "Interesting," she said, writing the answer down. "And no, I haven't been in love."

"Favorite family member?" Max asked.

Tess rolled her eyes. "Don't really have much to pick from there, do I? Kyle or Jim."

Max glanced across the table at the petite blonde. "What about among us?" he asked curiously.

Tess frowned. "I think the teacher would be a little suspicious if I put you, Michael, or Isabel down as my favorite relative," she pointed out.

"It was more of a personal question," Max replied.

"I don't do personal," Tess shot back.

Max glanced down at one of the questions, and smiled, knowing it would push Tess' buttons. "Why not?" he asked. "What are you afraid of?" Glancing up at Tess, he flashed a smile. "That's number fifteen."

"I'm not afraid of anything," Tess said swiftly, staring directly into Max's eyes. "And you never told me who your favorite relative was."

"Isabel," Max answered without hesitation. "How can you not be afraid of anything?"

"I'm just not," Tess replied with a shake of her head.

"You're supposed to be truthful on these questions," Max said. He stared down at the paper for a moment, then continued, "And I know you are afraid of something."

"If you know me so well, answer the question for me," Tess snapped, leaning back in her seat and glaring at Max. Max said nothing, so Tess read another question from the paper. "What is your biggest regret?"

Max hesitated, then shrugged. "I'm not sure," he replied.

"That's funny," Tess murmured, lowering her voice, "because I thought it would be revealing our secret to an entire diner."

"I don't regret anything that happened with Liz," Max said, weary of defending himself. "Obviously it was…" He stopped and glanced over at Liz. She was talking on the phone now, or rather, holding the cell phone up to her ear with a puzzled expression.

"Was what?" Tess pressed.

Max turned back to Tess. "Obviously we can't put anything like that down on the paper," he said, changing subjects. "So let's move on to the next question. Favorite book?"

Tess paused to think about that. "To Kill a Mockingbird," she said at last.

Max raised his eyebrows. "Mine is Red Badge of Courage."

"You haven't read that," Tess said with confidence. Max frowned at her, and she elaborated, "I remember when it was assigned to us in eighth grade. You didn't read it, you said you fell asleep every time you opened the pages."

"So you do listen when we talk," Max shot back. "Good to know, because I always assumed you ignored us." Tess said nothing, just glanced down at the paper, and Max said in a softer tone, "I'm sort of surprised that you remembered that, though."

Tess shrugged. "I remembered a lot of things," she replied, clearly uncomfortable. "Are you jealous of anyone? Number eighteen."

"I don't know," Max replied thoughtfully. "I guess I'm jealous of people who know where they are from and who their parents were. I hate this…this not knowing. I hate having all these questions and not a clue where to even look for the answers." He stared off into space for a moment, thinking. Then he turned and glanced back at Tess. "You?"

"No. I'm not jealous of anyone," Tess said stonily.

Max rolled his eyes. "I gave an honest answer to that question, Tess. You have to do the same."

"I can't," Tess said simply. "Not unless you want to start writing about…you know… our secret." She lowered her voice and glanced around the diner, but no one was looking at them.

"Oh? Fine, answer the question and I'll come up with euphemisms," Max pressed.

"Or not," Tess snapped.

"Tess, you can't not do the assignment just because its personal," Max said with a sigh. "And you can't not do it just because I'm your partner."

Tess stared at Max for a moment, then said, "Like I said, Max. If you think you know me so well, make up the answers yourself."

"Look, I don't want to be here anymore than you do but I am trying to do the assignment," Max argued tiredly. "And this constant bickering we've got going is bordering on redundant."

Tess stared impassively at Max, then said, "Number twenty-one. Best memory?"

"Being adopted," Max said, recognizing defeat. Tess was not going to give in, and he knew it was better to move to the next question. "You?"

"Same," Tess said simply.

"Which time?" Max asked before he could stop himself.

Tess looked up quickly, and some emotion Max could not quite identify flashed through her sapphire eyes. But it was gone so quickly that he wondered if he imagined it. And then Tess, answered the question, and it was not what he expected.

"Both," she said softly.

"Both?" Max echoed.

Tess nodded. "Both," she repeated.

Max frowned, but Tess said nothing more, so he glanced down at the paper again. "Worst memory?" he asked.

Tess licked her dry lips. "I'm sure you know the answer to that," she replied. "You?"

Max thought about it for a moment, then said, "When Isabel and I were seven, just a little while before I'd met you, we were out in the desert with Michael, playing in the sand. And all of a sudden, Isabel saw a bird or something, and went running off after it. And Michael chased her. But I was further behind, and I got separated from them… I couldn't keep up. I thought… I thought I was alone."

Tess nodded and stared at the paper. She wrote down Max's response in silence, then murmured, "You told me about that once. About being afraid of being alone."

"Yeah…" Max ran a hand through his hair. "I guess that's my biggest fear."

"Max!" Liz hurried towards them suddenly, worry evident in her eyes. Once she reached the table, she lowered her voice and looked around. "Max, I just got off the phone with Maria. Actually, she wasn't on the phone. But she called me…"

"Get to the point, Liz," Tess snapped, gesturing with one hand to hurry the brunette.

"Michael hijacked Maria's car with her in it. I don't know where they are going. She doesn't know where they are going. But they just got on to 285 South."

Max and Tess exchanged looks, both knowing exactly where Michael was headed.

* * *

Sean looked around the hotel room in silence, then walked over to the phone and dialed a number. He listened for a few moments, then heard the familiar voice pick up, "Hello?" 

"Maria? It's your fa-Sean," he said, stumbling over the words. "I just wanted to see how you were doing. I stopped by your house after school, but you weren't home."

"I know… I work in the… out until… later," came Maria's static reply.

"I can't hear you, I think you are loosing reception," Sean said, leaning against the wall with a frown. "Where are you?"

"Out with… back this evening…change in…okay?"

"Okay," Sean replied, having no idea what he was agreeing to. The other end of the line went dead, and he frowned slightly. Wherever Maria was, she was loosing reception, which most likely meant she was heading out of town. And that meant she wouldn't be back for a while.

Which meant that now was a perfect time to pay a visit to the DeLuca residence, and see if there were any clues he could dredge up.

* * *

Ms. Topolski tapped her fingers idly on the table and stared at her phone, waiting for it to ring. She knew the call was coming, and although she was patient in most of her endeavors, this was not one of them. She wanted the answer, and she wanted it now. 

At last, the loud jangling filled the room, and she practically lunged at the phone. "Agent Topolski," she said, speaking crisply into he phone.

"Agent Topolski, please hold for Agent Young," a curt male voice announced.

Ms. Topolski nodded slowly and tapped began to pace the room. The clue had first come to her a few days ago with the discovery of a record at the Office of Child Protection Services about a possible incidence of domestic violence. The event had occurred several years ago, when a foster father had hit his wife, and the wife had packed her bags and left, leaving a young boy with the father. When the wife had filed for divorce, the husband had lost it and, in a drunken stupor, tried to hit his foster son.

And the son had fought back, breaking his foster father's nose.

But that wasn't what interested Ms. Topolski.

What interested her was that the report of the abuse towards the son had never come to the attention of CPS. There was a record of Hank Guerin hitting his wife, of her leaving, but nothing more.

And yet the hospital records clearly showed that Hank Guerin had come in with a broken nose, drunk and swearing about how the 'brat' was going to pay for this. He had even gone so far as to say that he would 'finish what he had started with the boy, and no one would miss his worthless lazy self.' And Michael had come in with a few bruises and a stonewall expression that refused to give anything away.

Whether or not Michael ever did pay for it, Ms. Topolski had no idea. But what she was sure of was that if Hank had hit Michael, Michael would have been removed from Hank's care. So if the hospital had records of this fight, why was nothing ever done about it? Was it an oversight, or something more?

"Agent Topolski?"

"Agent Young? What have you found?" Ms. Topolski asked eagerly.

"Child Protection Services did not like the fact that I was asking questions, but I did manage to get the answers."

"Without raising suspicions? We can hardly afford to have them interfering in this case, they may scare off the target, Agent Young."

"They didn't suspect a thing," Agent Young's voice was confident.

Ms. Topolski smiled grimly. "Tell me what you found."

"Michael Guerin refused all treatment at the hospital and even went so far as to leave the building unsupervised," Agent Young replied crisply.

"A battered ten-year-old walked away?"

"When CPS interviewed him, Michael Guerin claimed to have fallen down some stairs," Agent Young continued.

"He covered for his foster father," Ms. Topolski nodded. That was not entirely surprising, many battered children or wives would not betray their fathers and husbands for fear of the men's wrath. Was Michael afraid, or…

"There are no hospital records of his treatment, not a blood test, not a x-ray. It would appear as though nothing was done to the young Mr. Guerin," Agent Young announced. "But…"

Ms. Topolski smiled with anticipation. "But what?" she pressed.

"But the next day he showed up at school without a mark on his face. The school has no record of him every having come to class with more than a few scrapes, and attendance shows he was in class the day after his trip to the hospital."

"How severely bruised was he when they brought him in?" Ms. Topolski asked.

"Bruised enough that it wouldn't have all faded over night," Agent Young answered. "I can fax over some photographs if you would like."

"Yes, thank you," Agent Topolski replied, hanging up the phone.

Maybe it was time to pay Hank Guerin a visit.

* * *

Next Chapter: Needle in a Haystack 

Due: Friday 4/21


	29. Needle in a Haystack

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: One of the reviews pointed out that Maria's car actually belonged to her mother, and since her mother's car was destroyed in the car accident, where did the car come from? For the sake of my story, Maria needed a car, so we are just going to pretend that she got a new car after her mother's was destroyed. Or maybe they just had two cars. It doesn't really matter.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Needle in a Haystack

"I can't believe Michael would do anything this stupid," Isabel muttered as she leaned against the counter in the back room of the Crashdown.

"I can," Tess said matter-of-factly. All eyes turned to her, and she shrugged. "Well, I can."

Max, Tess, Isabel, Alex, and Liz were gathered together around the counter, discussing their options. After Liz had informed them of Maria's phone call, Max had quickly dragged Isabel away from her date with John, and Liz had sought out Alex. The two had been caught up to speed, but now no one was really sure how to proceed.

"Is Maria in any danger?" Alex asked at last, glancing over at Max in concern.

"Not from Michael," Max declared. He shared a look with Isabel, then said, "I don't think any of them are in any actual danger, but I would like to find them before they…"

"Expose us all?" Tess supplied helpfully.

Max shot her an annoyed look, but she just smiled back. Turning to Isabel, Max continued, "We need to go after him."

"Okay. I'll get the car," Isabel replied with a shrug.

"No," Max said abruptly, shaking his head. "We can't all disappear, it would draw to much attention to everything." He glanced at Liz. "Can you stay here and keep an eye on Kyle and Jim?"

"Wouldn't it be better if Tess did that?" Liz question, confused.

Max shook his head. "No. Tess and I are going to go after Michael. Just the two of us."

Tess raised an eyebrow at the authoritative tone, but for once did not argue with Max's decision. Isabel, Alex, and Liz, however, did find flaws in his plan, and were quick to voice their objections.

"I'm not just going to sit back while Maria is in any kind of danger," Alex said swiftly, shaking his head. "Not going to happen."

Isabel nodded in agreement. "If Michael gets in to trouble, you might need my help to get him out of it."

"Not if Tess is with me," Max pointed out reasonably. "Mind-warp will be much more useful than dream-walking."

"We could all go," Liz said softly.

Max sighed and rubbed his eyes. "Look, someone needs to stay here and make sure that Kyle and Valenti don't get suspicious when a whole bunch of kids suddenly disappear. Tess said that anything could trigger a relapse from Valenti's mind-warp, and I don't want to take chances. And because we might need Tess' gifts in while tracking down Michael, Liz is the logical person to stay here and watch the Sheriff."

"Why?" Liz objected.

"Because you are doing the question-and-answer thing with Kyle," Tess answered for Max. "You can hang out with him and he won't be suspicious."

"Fine, but why can't Isabel and I go?" Alex asked.

Max shook his head. "I want someone with gifts here in case something happens. With the shape-shifter out there, we can't be too careful."

"And why can't I come?" Alex pressed.

"Because I said so!" Max hissed in frustration. Alex seemed taken aback by the hard words, as well as by the authoritative air that was now radiating from the alien. "Look, we are wasting time arguing over this. Tess and I can go after Michael, and if anyone notices that we are gone, they will just assume that we are working on the project. Liz and Isabel need to stay here, and it just makes more sense if you stay with them," Max continued in a calmer voice.

"Max is right," Tess agreed, and that caused everyone to turn to her in astonishment. "I know I don't say this very often, but he is right." She glanced over at Alex. "I know you don't like the plan, and I understand why. But we need to find Michael before he does something stupid, and we simply don't have the time to argue about it."

Alex looked as though he was going to argue, but thought better of it. Max's words had not convinced him of the necessity of this plan, but Tess' argument somehow did. Or perhaps it was the way she said it, without mocking or bitterness. He had rarely heard her speak so honestly, and he knew she was concerned for Michael's safety. And, by extension, Maria's safety.

"Fine," he relented at last. "But call us to check in, alright?" He waited until Max nodded in assent, then walked out of the backroom.

Liz sighed and watched him go, then turned to Max. "I'm going to go find Kyle and see if he wants to get started on the project." She paused, then said quickly, "Be safe," before hurrying from the room.

"I don't like this," Isabel stated bluntly.

"I know," Max said simply. "But you have to trust me, this is the best plan we've got at the moment." He hesitated, then said, "I just don't want to take any chances. The shape-shifter is somewhere out there, and we don't know what else is going on…"

Isabel sighed and nodded. "Alright, I'm going back to John. But keep me posted, or I'm coming after you."

"Fair enough," Max acquiesced with a grin. Isabel left, and he turned to Tess. "Let's go," he said quickly. Then he turned and left the diner, Tess following behind him. They crossed the street quickly and Max scrambled into the driver's seat of his car, while Tess climbed into the passenger side. Then they pulled into the street and drove away.

Standing outside the Crashdown, a man watched them go in interest. Then he reached for his cell phone and quickly dialed a number. After two rings, a woman's voice answered sharply.

"Agent Topolski."

"I'm outside the Crashdown. Max Evans and Tess Harding just left in quite a hurry."

There was a pause. "I'm following another lead at the moment, Agent Willis. Find out where they are going and let me know."

"Yes, ma'am."

* * *

Sean stood outside the DeLuca residence and glanced around, making sure no one was watching. After determining that he was alone, he used his powers to open the door and slipped into the entryway. He shut the door tightly behind him and walked purposefully into the house.

He didn't know what he was looking for, in fact, he doubted there was anything to find. It did not appear as though Maria was too deeply involved with the Royal Four, although she was clearly important to them. But did they trust her with their secrets?

He walked into the kitchen. He hadn't really thought the plan through, and was unsure what his next move should be. He had now managed to integrate himself into the group so that his presence would not be questioned, but what next? Should he try to learn everything possible about these new hybrids? The more he saw of the four, the less he was sure that they were worth the trouble. They remembered nothing about their past, and they seemed not to posses such great power. He had hoped that he could somehow make them dependent on him, but now… if they were to face their enemies, he was not so sure they would win.

But he could train them.

The thought entered his mind as he made his way into the living room. They were searching for answers, answers that he had. He could reveal the truth to them, bit by bit. He could teach them how to survive, how to grow strong. He could remind them of who they were and show them who they could be. If only they would live up to their potential.

But he had to make them dependent on him. He could not allow them to form their own unit without him. It would ruin all his plans.

He walked up the stairs and towards Maria's room. She was his way in, but how much access could he really achieve through her? He pushed the door open and stepped into the room.

And standing in the room, the answer came to him.

Through Maria, he could reach the General.

The King was the most powerful of the group, but he was also too caught up in being human. And with his new human love-Sean gave a snort of disgust at the thought-he was unlikely to want to become the great King he once was.

The Queen wanted the answers. But she was suspicious of strangers, and cautious even around those she trusted. It would be too difficult to earn her trust, as either Sean DeLuca or Nasedo.

The Princess… the Princess would see right through him. She had done it once before, when he had the form of the Deputy. She could discern the truth better than any of the others, and it was too risky to approach her.

But the General…

The General wanted answers. And he wanted them desperately. He was willing to do almost anything to get them. If Sean could earn Maria's trust, through Maria, he could reach the General, and slowly feed him answers.

But he couldn't reveal who he was. Not yet. For now, the clues would have to come anonymously.

Give them answers and have them begging for more… Sean smiled in satisfaction at the plan.

Then something caught his eye. It was a piece of paper on Maria's desk. A note. He walked over to it and picked it up, staring at the paper.

It was from the guidance counselor at the school. Ms. Topolski. It asked to set up a meeting with Maria for later in the week to continue their discussion. Sean frowned, wondering what the discussion had been about. It was the counselor's job to keep an eye on any student in distress, and with Amy DeLuca in the hospital, Maria was most certainly hurting. But could it be more than that?

Perhaps it would be a good idea to see how much this woman knew.

He could not risk anyone compromising his plan.

And he was _not_ going back to the white room.

* * *

"Where are we going?" Maria asked, rubbing her eyes and leaning her head against the window of the car. She had asked the question before, several times, and received stony silence from Michael. But she refused to give up. They were speeding down the highway, and she was determined to figure out what their final destination was.

Michael didn't answer. Instead, he swerved into another lane and pressed down harder on the gas.

"Watch it!" Maria snapped. "This car can't take above sixty." She glanced at the speedometer and noted that Michael was going eighty. And he wasn't slowing down. "You're going to blow the engine."

"We've only got about three more hours," Michael replied with a shrug.

"To where?" Maria tried again.

"Marathon, Texas," Michael said with a sigh, finally giving in and answering the question.

"What?" Maria was flabbergasted. "That's…that's a different state."

"So?" Michael replied, unconcerned.

"I'm going to have you arrested for this," Maria snapped. "I was being nice and driving you to the gas station, and you stole my car!"

Michael didn't answer.

"What's in Marathon anyway?" Maria pressed. "Why do you have to go there?" She eyed Michael for a moment, and when he didn't answer, she pressed, "Contraband? Some woman? Come on, as long as I'm coming along for the ride, I should get to know."

"You wouldn't understand," Michael said softly, so softly that Maria barely caught the words.

"Look, I already know a lot more than I want to about any of this," Maria retorted. "First you kidnap me, then when I call you Liz you break up the call and toss the cell phone out the window. I'm in this way over my head and I don't…"

"Oh, right, so this is all about you," Michael snapped. "Don't you ever think about any one else? This could be the most important day of my life, and all you can…" He broke off abruptly as the engine began to sputter. "Damn it!"

Maria watched impassively as Michael pulled the car over to the side of the highway and climbed out. Smoke was pouring out from under the hood. He climbed out of the driver's seat and walked over to the engine, yanking the hood up and staring at through the dark smoke in distaste.

After a moment, Maria got out of the car and joined him. "Can't you just use your powers to fix it?" she asked.

Michael shook his head slowly.

"Why not?" Maria asked.

"I just can't, okay?" Michael shot back, not wanting to delve into the issue.

But Maria would not let it go. "You should be able to. Liz said that Max said that you guys can change the molecular structure of things. Can't you just wave your hand and…"

"I can't control it, okay?" Michael hissed. "I'd probably just blow the thing up." His face flushed slightly as he said this, as though he was embarrassed to admit it. And, in truth, it was embarrassing, because he had no doubt that Max, Isabel, or Tess could have fixed it. But he had never had quite the same amount of control over his gifts as they did over theirs. Isabel had told him, time and again, that it was because he did not know how to control his emotions, and maybe that was true. Either way, he couldn't fix the engine.

"So what? We're stuck here?" Maria demanded. She looked around. "Fine, I'm flagging down a car and going home."

"Go ahead," Michael said quietly.

That stopped Maria. She had expected him to argue, not give in. She turned and stared at him in surprise, then asked, "What did you mean this could be the most important day of your life?"

"Nothing," Michael replied. "It doesn't matter anymore."

"Look," Maria retorted, "I can flag down a car and get you arrested for theft and kidnapping, or you can tell me what is in Marathon, Texas, and I can help you. You've got sixty seconds to make a decision."

Michael sighed and looked up at the sky. It was a bright blue, and there wasn't a cloud in sight. "Liz found this book at the library," he said at last. "It had a symbol in it, one that the four of us aliens recognized. It felt… I can't explain it, but the symbol was familiar. And the book says that Atherton, the guy who recorded the symbol, wrote a whole manuscript about it. That manuscript could have the answers to our questions. But the manuscript was hidden, never found. His house is in Marathon, and that manuscript might be in his house."

"Or it might not," Maria said in confusion. "Or it could be all made up. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack."

"But it is the only clue that we've got," Michael explained. "Don't you get that? Even if it is a needle in a haystack, it is still more than we had before we read the book. I can't _not_ look for it. I can't not try to find the answers. This is my _life_."

Maria nodded slowly, then walked over to the side of the road and waved her hand at a passing car. The car pulled to a stop by the side of the road and a man stepped out. "What can I do for you two?" the man asked pleasantly.

"I'm guessing she wants a ride back to Roswell and me thrown in jail," Michael grumbled.

"Wh-what?" the man stuttered, confused. "I don't understand."

Maria flashed Michael an annoyed look, then turned to the other man. "Please excuse my friend, traveling makes his grouchy." She smiled brightly and continued, "We're trying to get to Marathon, Texas, but our engine broke down. Can you help us?"

The man walked over to the engine and stared at it for a moment. Then he said, "It just looks like it overheated. Let me call a garage for you and have someone drive out and look at it." He pulled out his cell phone and quickly dialed a number.

Michael looked at Maria in surprise. She gave him a tight smile and said nothing.

As the man walked back towards his own car, talking to the garage mechanic on the other line, Michael asked quietly, "Why?"

Maria shrugged.

Michael swallowed slowly, then said, "Thank you."

Maria shrugged again, then said, "You never did answer that last question I asked you. Number fifteen, I think. What are you afraid of?" When Michael looked like he wouldn't answer, Maria continued swiftly, "You owe me." She jerked her head towards the other man and lifted her eyebrows in warning.

Michael sighed and looked down at his feet. "I'm afraid of never finding out who I am, of never belonging anywhere, of never answering any of my questions. Or worse, I'm afraid of having someone else find out all the answers first." He looked up at Maria and said honestly, "I need those answers."

"Why?"

Michael sighed and turned around, walking away from the road towards the desert that spread out around them. "Because there has to be something out there that's better than Roswell, New Mexico," he called over his shoulder.

* * *

Ms. Topolski glanced disdainfully around the trailer park as she reached up and wrapped sharply on the door in front of her. It was the middle of the afternoon, and she was unsure whether or not Hank Guerin would be home. He did not appear to be employed anywhere, but perhaps he was out with friends?

That was not the case. The door swung open and a face appeared behind it. The man had small eyes that squinted close together at the bridge of his nose and a perpetual scowl that caused frown lines to appear on his forehead.

"What'd you want?" he demanded harshly, his eyes running up and down Ms. Topolski calculatingly.

"Mr. Guerin? I'm Ms. Topolski," Ms. Topolski replied with a forced smile. The overwhelming smell of alcohol drifted from this man, forcing her to turn her head away to breath clean air. "I'm the guidance counselor at the Roswell High," she continued pleasantly.

"What dith that brat do nowth?" Hank slurred, his words becoming indistinct.

Ms. Topolski shook her head quickly. "Oh, Michael hasn't done anything," she replied smoothly. "He's just been absent from school a lot, and I was worried that maybe he was ill?"

Hank gave a laugh that turned into a choking cough. After he regained his breath, he shook his head and snarled, "Boy's not sick. Just didn't wanna go, I'm guessin'."

"Really? Is this a frequent occurrence?" Ms. Topolski pressed.

Hank shrugged. "How the hell would I knowth?" he demanded.

Ms. Topolski bit back the urge to reply that it was a parent's job to know that sort of thing. Instead, she just smiled and said, "Well, is he here now? May I speak to him?"

"No, he ain't here. Ain't been here in the afternoon's ever. Kid's a deadbeat, won't do no chores or nothin'." Hank's words were slurred again, and his grammar was quickly deteriorating. Ms. Topolski couldn't help but wonder just how drunk he really was. But before she could say anything, Hank had continued, "You see m'boy, you tell him to get home, you hear? He's got work an' stuff."

"Do you know where he might be?" Ms. Topolski asked, hoping to glean any information she could from the foster father.

"Sure…" Hank paused for a moment, then said, "He's been hanging with them Evans kids for ever. And I seen that blonde girl around when they were littler."

Ms. Topolski smiled. "You mean Tess Harding?" she asked sweetly.

"Yeah, them Sheriff's daughter," Hank agreed. "Oh… and I seen him once with that brunette from the diner… Parker girl, you know?"

"Elizabeth Parker." Ms. Topolski nodded. Here was proof that Michael had been friends with Tess at one point, and that he was now involved in whatever was going on with Liz Parker right now. She glanced up at Hank. "Tell me, Mr Guerin, is there anything unusual about your foster son?" She held her breath, hoping she hadn't pushed to far.

But if Hank saw anything strange about the line of questioning, he didn't comment on it. In fact, his intoxicated mind hadn't even registered how strange it was for the school guidance counselor to be standing on his porch asking questions.

"Lazy, that's what he is," Hank stated. "Sometimes he does funny things, though. All secretive and stuff. And always running around with them Evans. " He paused, then growled, "Lazy brat."

Ms. Topolski nodded slowly. She wasn't going to get anything out of this man, not while he was in the state he was in. Still, it might be of use to keep an eye on him. Who knew what information he could give when he was sober.

If he ever was sober.

As Ms. Topolski walked away, she mentally reviewed what she had learned. As she had suspected, Tess Harding had been friends with Michael Guerin and the two Evans kids at one point. If she was part of this entire case, then she wouldn't have stopped talking to them completely. And the silver handprint on the Hardings' bodies indicated that she was tied to this extraterrestrial mess in more ways then one.

And Hank had noticed that Michael did funny things sometimes. That could mean nothing at all, or it could be something significant. The fact that he now was seen with Liz Parker was also interesting…

But as Ms. Topolski walked to the car, she couldn't keep the tiny sliver of doubt from entering her mind. All the secrets he was hiding… could they simply have to do with his not-so-ideal home life? Michael could be a dangerous being with superhuman ability, or he could just be a teenager in an abusive home.

She paused at looked back at the trailer. It was easier when things were simple and straight-forward. She didn't like it when the enemy became a victim.

* * *

Next Chapter: Separations and Investigations

Due: Fri 5/5


	30. Seperations and Investigations

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Thanks to all who review. Alright, this is the last chapter of the question-and-answer sessions. So it is a bit longer than normal because I needed to fit everything into it. Also, I know that in the show it took more than one day to reach Atherton's dome. But in my story there is no roadblock, so Michael and Maria make it to the dome before nightfall. I'm not sure if that is entirely realistic, geographically, but for the sake of the story, I am assuming that it is.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Separations and Investigations

"So… what now?" Kyle asked slowly as he took the seat across from Liz in the Crashdown booth and flashed her a hesitant smile. The diner was almost empty, so Liz had managed to snag a few spare minutes from her work, and has asked if he wanted to start their project.

Liz looked at him for a moment, then looked away. "What do you mean?" she asked softly, trying to calm her frantically beating heart. "The assignment is straight-forward enough, Kyle. You ask questions, I answer them. Then I ask questions…"

Kyle rolled his eyes as Liz evaded his real question. "It isn't straight-forward because it is us. We have a history, Liz."

"Can we just ask each other the questions?" Liz asked tiredly.

"Fine," Kyle said, leaning away from Liz in frustration. He wanted to talk about what had happened, the way they had fallen apart. Why didn't she? He glanced down at the paper and smirked. "Alright, here's my first question. Have you ever been in love?"

"It doesn't really ask that," Liz protested, glancing at her own list of questions. She paled slightly when she saw that it did indeed ask the question. Glancing up at Kyle, she bit her lip and shrugged. "I'm not sure," she replied at last. "You?"

"I thought I was…" Kyle gave Liz a hard stare. "But, no, I was wrong."

Liz swallowed and looked down at the paper, wishing she could be anywhere else in the world besides right here. Why did she agree to stay behind?

"What about this one?" Kyle continued. "Do you have any regrets?"

Liz looked at the question he was pointing to, then back at Kyle. "Can't we start with the simple ones like what my favorite ice cream flavor is and that sort of thing?" she asked. "You know, go in numerical order."

"Why bother?" Kyle replied. "I've known you for a while, Liz, so I know what your favorite ice cream flavor is. It's vanilla, and I can fill that one in later on my own. I just need to ask you the questions that I don't know the answers to…" He looked up, forcing Liz to meet his piercing stare. "Do you have any regrets?"

"Do you?" Liz shot back, not liking where the conversation was going. There was an uncomfortable pause, then Liz said, "I thought that we were past all this, Kyle."

"Past you cheating on me with Max Evans, lying to me about it, and then dumping me? Not to mention accusing me of stealing your journal," Kyle sneered. He shook his head. "No, Liz, we aren't past that. When you are with Max, you become a totally different person. And I'm not so sure I like the person you've become."

"Look, our relationship just ran its course," Liz said patiently. "Like all relationships do…"

"So your relationship with Max, is that just going to run its course as well?" Kyle cut in bitingly. When Liz didn't answer, Kyle continued, "What happened to you, Liz?"

"I don't see why you are so upset about this," Liz asked gently. "It didn't take you that long to move on after we broke up." She frowned suddenly as an idea occurred to her. "Or is this just because you and Trudy are having an argument right now?"

Kyle flushed. "This has nothing to do with Trudy," he snapped. He looked down at the paper. "What are you so afraid of?" he asked. "Number fifteen." He pointed to the question.

Liz sighed and closed her eyes. "Please don't do this, Kyle," she said softly. "I don't want to have this argument with you."

"It isn't an argument," Kyle said swiftly. "It is an assignment. And, like you said, it is pretty straight-forward. I ask questions and you answer them."

"Stop treating me like I am the enemy," Liz hissed, frustrated to no end. "I'm not trying to hurt you, Kyle, and I'm not trying to make you mad at me. Things just happened, and I never meant for it to end up like this."

"But it did end up like this," Kyle replied. "And you can't change that."

"Then what do you want me to say?" Liz asked, practically begging. "Tell me how to fix this. Tell me how to make it better."

Kyle paused, having never really considered the question before. He had spent so long being mad at Liz, but was there anything she could do or say that would make the situation better? Could it in fact be fixed, or was he just wasting his time? Was it doomed to fail from the start?

"What happened to us, Liz?" Kyle asked at last, tiredly rubbing his eyes. The anger that had flared up only moments before was draining now, and leaving him simply exhausted. "We used to date. We used to tell each other everything. When do we drift so far apart?"

Liz shrugged. "I don't know," she lied. She knew exactly what the answer was. They had drifted apart the day Max had healed her and opened her eyes to a world she had no idea existed. And yet… that wasn't quite right. They had been drifting apart for a while before the shooting, and Max's interference had only been the catalyst of the problems, not the source.

"Yeah… me neither." Kyle stood slowly, glancing down at the assignment. "Why don't we do this later? Some time when we aren't quite so riled up."

Liz nodded absently, then reached out and caught Kyle's hand. He turned and looked at her, and she said softly, "I still want to be friends with you, Kyle. That is, if you are allowed to be friends with someone who isn't popular." She gave a slight smile, hoping the joke would bring Kyle out of his black mood.

For a moment, it did. For a moment, he smiled, laughter in his eyes. But then the look was gone, and he shook his head. "I don't think that is such a good idea," he admitted slowly.

"Why not?" Liz asked, hurt. She hadn't been expecting such clear rejection, and although she had no interest in dating Kyle, his blasé response still cut deep. She did care about him, as a friend, and didn't want to lose that.

"Because I may have a said a lot of things that weren't true in our previous conversations, Liz, but I meant it when I said I don't like the person you've become," Kyle replied bluntly. "You run around in secret with Max, you lie to me and accuse me of betraying your trust, and if anything the rumor mills at school say is true, you've been ignoring your friends as well."

"Wh-what?" Liz breathed. "What do you mean? Are people talking about me?"

Kyle shrugged. "Just a few things here and there. About you dating Max to the expense of your other friendships. The Liz I dated would never have ignored Maria and Alex in favor of her boyfriend." He shrugged again, this time slightly apologetically, then turned and left the diner.

Liz watched her ex-boyfriend go, then stood up slowly, her mind reeling back to what Alex had said to her earlier. Was she neglecting her friends? Would the old Liz have let Max tell her to stay if there was even the slightest chance that Maria was in danger? Would the old Liz have waited so long before meeting Sean? Would the old Liz have ignored the fact that Alex might need someone to talk to about his deteriorating relationship (if you could even call it that) with Isabel? She shook her head and ran a hand through her hair, tired and upset. She needed to talk to Maria and Alex, she needed to see what they thought.

The person Kyle had described…

She didn't want to be that person.

And she wasn't entirely sure that that wasn't _exactly_ what she was becoming.

* * *

Max tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he pressed his foot on the acceleration. The Roswell desert whipped by the window, the red and brown landscape blurring into a mass of color and hazy shapes. Tess leaned her head against the window, her eyes closed, her entire face relaxed. But she wasn't relaxed, wouldn't be even remotely close to relaxed until they found Michael. 

Why on _Earth_ did he have to do something this _stupid_?

"We're going to need an alibi," Max said, breaking the tense silence. Tess opened her eyes and shot him a questioning look, and he elaborated, "We won't be back tonight. We're going to need an alibi."

Tess shrugged. "Jim and Kyle aren't going to question me to closely. I'll call them later and tell them I'll be out for the night. That's all they'll need to know."

Max sighed. "Yeah, well, I need more of a story than that to tell my mother."

"So think one up," Tess snapped uninterestedly. She closed her eyes again and lapsed into silence.

After a moment, Max said in exasperation, "I was hoping you could help me come up with an alibi." Tess didn't reply, so he pressed, "Because I'm coming up blank."

"Tell her you're studying with Liz," Tess said with a shrug.

"But then Liz will have to cover for me," Max pointed out. "And what if my mom calls the Parkers? They'll tell her I'm not there."

Tess opened one eye and regarded Max for a moment, then closed her eyes and said, "She isn't going to cross examine you or them. Just lie."

"I can't," Max said. "I'm not that good at it."

Tess laughed suddenly and said, "You know, the irony of that, is that you've been lying to your parents about who you are and what you can do since you were old enough to realize that you were different. Basically from day one, all you've done is lie."

"That's different," Max protested.

Tess shrugged and stared out of the window. After another silence, she said, "Don't give her a reason not to trust you, Max. Don't give her a reason to be suspicious, and she won't be."

"Simple as all that, huh?" Max asked dryly.

"Always worked for me," Tess replied. She ran a hand through her hair and licked her dry lips. "How are we going to find Michael? He could be anywhere in Texas."

"He's going to Atherton's house, so we know he's going to be in Marathon," Max answered. "Hopefully we can catch up with him before he gets there."

"If he isn't already there now," Tess pointed out. The air got hotter as they drove further out into the desert. Hotter and more stifling, and Tess felt her entire mouth go dry.

"I hate this weather," Max commented as he sped up and switched lanes. Tess didn't reply, and they drove in silence again.

"You were very… authoritative," Tess remarked at last. "Back at the Crashdown, you… you took control of the situation."

"Yeah…"

"You've been doing that a lot lately. Or, at least, more than normal."

"Yeah…"

Again, a silence.

"Everybody dying."

Max jerked his head sharply to Tess as she said those two simple words, his eyes wide in surprise. "What?" he asked sharply. "What are you talking about?"

"Number fifteen," Tess said quietly. "What am I afraid of? That's the answer to the question. I'm afraid of everyone dying." She licked her lips again and played with a single curl. The humidity made her hair frizzy, so she waved a hand over it, taming the loose curls easily. "I'm afraid of coming home to find out that Kyle and Jim have been killed. In a car accident, in a random shooting, by killer aliens… Or you and Michael and Isabel… I'm afraid of everyone dying, and being unable to stop it. Again."

Max didn't say anything. He had no idea what to say to that. Tess rarely admitted any sort of feeling to him, not since they were younger. He hadn't been her confident since middle school, and he suddenly found that he had no idea how to relate to her on such a personal level.

But Tess wasn't done.

"And I'm afraid of watching you walk away again. I don't know how we got to where we are now, but one way or another we did. And it can be incredibly unpleasant at times. Broken friendships always are, and ours has so much history… But I can live with that. I can live with not really liking you or Isabel or Michael. But I'm _terrified_ of the thought that you might walk away from us. Because of Liz. We're drifting apart, all of us, but you more than the others. And we were unable to stop it once before, I don't want to watch it happen again."

"Liz isn't what is pulling us apart, Tess," Max said softly, and then was hit by the overwhelming since of déjà vu. He had uttered those words before. Not exactly the same ones, but ones with the same meaning. A different place, a different time…

Unbidden, memories of Liz's flash came to mind. In some other place, he and Tess had been… He swallowed, unable to even think the thoughts. What had happened to them then? How had they drifted apart?

"No, she isn't," Tess agreed, and that caught Max by surprise. "But she is part of the problem. We all are, Max. Her opinion is so important to you now, and… it seems sometimes like you value her over us. Over me."

Max didn't say anything for a moment. There was some truth in Tess' words, since he and Liz had started dating, he _had_ been pulling away from the others. How long had it been since he and Michael and Isabel had hung out and talked about something other than alien business? How long had it been since they had shared a meal together and complained about homework or unfair teachers or their parents' annoying rules. How long had it been?

Finally, Max said, "I love her."

Tess cracked a smile. "You told me you weren't sure if you had ever been in love. Did you lie on the homework assignment?"

"Yes," Max replied bluntly. He switched lanes again. "I'm not trying to pull away from anyone, Tess. But with Liz, Maria, and Alex in one the secret, the group dynamics are changing."

"I know," Tess said. "And I know that you love Liz." Max raised an eyebrow, and Tess smirked. "Just because you're blind, doesn't mean all of us are. I've known how you feel about Liz for a while now."

"I'm not entirely sure I like the sound of that," Max remarked, and Tess laughed.

For a moment, they both relaxed slightly. It was rare that they laughed together, and they each wanted to savor the moment before it turned sour again.

Which it did really quickly.

"But just because you love her doesn't mean that you should ignore us," Tess snapped, and the strange sense of déjà vu hit her. She blinked and looked away, unnerved by the feeling that she had had this conversation before.

"I'm not. But you make it perfectly clear that you won't hang out with her, and Isabel and Michael aren't really helping…" Max defended himself. He glanced over at Tess. "I _love_ her. Is it too much to ask that you accept her?"

"This is our lives you're playing with. Is it too much to ask that you be careful?" Tess shot back.

Max didn't say anything, and the air was heavy with silent accusations.

Finally, Max said, "You walked away from us before, Tess. You chose to be popular."

"We've had this discussion a million times, Max, and it gets us nowhere," Tess replied tiredly. "You think I walked away, I think you walked away…"

"Then why can't we just go back to the way things were?" Max demanded. He had a sudden flash of Tess, standing in a garden underneath a gnarled cherry tree, tears in her eyes as she gave him a bittersweet smile.

And when Tess spoke, Max could see the phantom Tess in the garden speaking the words as well.

"Because, for good or ill, what happened, happened. And we can't undo the past."

Max shook his head and forced the vision away.

Tess stared at her reflection in the window for a while, her eyes looking out past the glass and into the distance, not really seeing anything. Max kept his eyes on the road, his mind rapidly wondering about what he had just seen.

"I'm sorry," Max said at last. Tess gave him an inquiring glance, and he repeated, "I'm sorry. If you feel like I value Liz over you… I'm sorry for that." He wasn't entirely sure how sorry he was, but this was the first real conversation he had had with Tess in a while, and he wasn't going to waste the opportunity. She ran hot and cold, and if she was in the mood to talk today, then that was fine with him. "But I do love her, and that won't change."

"I know," Tess said.

"And it is the seven of us now," Max pressed.

Tess didn't answer for a while. When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet, and she was choosing her words carefully. "It is never going to be the seven of us Max, and you _know_ that. They may be part of the group, but they aren't… they aren't us. I'm not saying they don't deserve to be included in discussions and everything, I just… I don't want you to get confused about who we are and who they are. They will never be alien, and you will never be human. The four of us are stuck in this, whether we like it or not. The three of them at least have the chance to walk away. That is what makes us different."

"Really?" Max deadpanned. "And here I thought it was the strange powers and bizarre looking cells that set us apart from them."

Tess gave a slight smile and lapsed into silence.

It wasn't an answer to their problems, it wasn't a solution to the tension in the group. But they had successfully managed to discuss the issue without either one storming off in anger and bitterness. It wasn't much, but it was something to be grateful for. Even if they still stood on opposites sides of the debate… At the very least, it was a step in the right direction.

* * *

"So… should we do this assignment?" Alex asked casually as he walked into the Evan's living room. Isabel had invited him over to work on the project, and now he felt incredibly uncomfortable, standing in front of her and having no idea what to say. 

"Sure," Isabel replied. She gestured for Alex to take a seat on the sofa. "Do you want anything to drink?"

Alex shook his head wordlessly. "No, thank you," he replied politely. There was a decidedly frosty air in the room. Both Alex and Isabel were being overly polite and formal, each unsure of how to act.

"Well, let's get started," Isabel said at last. She glanced down at the paper on her lap. "Favorite ice cream flavor?"

"Chocolate," Alex replied quickly. "You?"

"Same," Isabel said. In truth, she had no idea what her favorite ice cream flavor was. How was she supposed to narrow it down to one?

"Favorite relative?" Alex asked.

Isabel replied automatically, "Max. How about you?"

"Um…" Alex shook his head. "I don't know. My dad, I guess." He shrugged apologetically.

"Favorite television show?" Isabel asked as she wrote down Alex's answer.

"I don't really watch television that much," Alex replied.

"I watch Buffy," Isabel said quickly, looking up at Alex. "And sometimes Friends." She glanced down at the questions again. "Favorite book?"

"_Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_," Alex replied honestly. Then he frowned slightly, wondering if the alien reference would offend Isabel. Then he wondered why he would care whether or not it offend her.

Isabel simply shook her head in disgust. "What is it with this town and being obsessed with aliens?" she asked airily. Alex didn't answer, but just raised his eyebrows. Isabel sighed and said, "My favorite is _Little Women_."

"Okay… Do you have any hopes and dreams?" Alex asked.

Isabel shrugged. "I want to be a fashion designer," she admitted. "Maybe in Los Angeles. Then I could be in a big city but still be semi-close to home." She looked behind her towards the door of the kitchen. "I think my mom would like that also," she commented dryly.

"Is your mom home?" Alex asked curiously.

Isabel nodded. "But she's working right now, so she can't here us. She always wears earplugs when she works to block out the extra noise." She ran a hand through her long blonde hair. "Do you have any dreams?"

"I'll get a degree in computer-science and go from there," Alex replied practically.

"Have you ever been in love?" Isabel asked curiously.

"No," Alex replied quickly. A little too quickly. "Um… you?" he asked, flustered.

Isabel shook her head. "No, I don't think so," she answered, pondering the question for a moment. "How do you know if you are in love?"

"Ask Max and Liz," Alex replied carelessly.

Isabel gave him a sharp look. "They're in love?" she asked incredulously. When Alex just gave her a blank stare in response, she shook her head. "I knew he liked her, but…" She narrowed her eyes shrewdly. "How do they know it's love?"

"I don't know." Alex rubbed his eyes. "What's the best thing that happened to you?"

"Being adopted," Isabel said without hesitation.

Alex paused. There wasn't anything he could say that wouldn't sound trite compared to Isabel's response, but he finally let out a slow breath and said, "Meeting Maria and Liz."

There was a silence as they each wrote down the other's answers. Then Isabel asked, "What's your worst memory?"

"My grandmother dying," Alex answered promptly. "I was really little…" He looked over at Isabel. "What about you?"

"Realizing that I was different," Isabel said softly. "Realizing that I…" She glanced at Alex. "Write down being abandoned," she requested. It wasn't exactly the truth, but she couldn't tell her teacher that her worst memory was discover that she was actually an alien.

Alex scribbled her answer on the paper.

"What's your biggest fear?" Isabel asked, reading over the list of questions again.

Alex thought about it for a moment. "I don't really know," he said at last. "I'm afraid of things I don't understand and can't control." He glanced quickly at Isabel. "Not that I'm anti-foreign things like aliens or anything, I just… I don't know, I mean… when my grandmother got cancer... and everyone was so upset because there was nothing we could do… and I just remember hating that feeling of helplessness… You know, when someone you love is hurt and you can't help them… when their life is in someone else's hands, and you just… Being helpless is so…" Alex stopped, realizing he was babbling.

But Isabel was staring at him with a far away look in her eyes. "Yeah," she murmured. "I know the feeling."

There was another silence, this one awkward, then Alex rushed on, "What's your biggest regret?"

"Lying to my parents about who I am," Isabel said. Then she shook her head. "But you can't put that down, because it will raise too many questions and I can't tell my parents the truth anyway."

"Oh… okay." Alex thought about it for a moment, then said, "Mine is probably lying to Liz about Maria and I dating and lying to Maria about the whole Czechoslovakian thing. It caused a lot of problems in our friendship." He ran a hand through his hair and asked, "Are you jealous of anyone?"

"I'm jealous of people who know where they are from," Isabel replied. "Who know who they are and who their family is and… that sort of thing."

Alex wrote that down, then ventured a comment of his own. "But you know most of that, Isabel. You might not know where you are from, but you know who you are and who your family is." Alex watched as Isabel turned and gave him her full attention. "You're Isabel Evans. You're family includes Mr. and Mrs. Evans, Max, Michael, and Tess."

Isabel rolled her eyes. "It's not… it isn't enough," she explained.

"But aren't you the one out of the group who keeps claiming that you can be normal if you just try hard enough?" Alex pointed out logically.

Isabel closed her eyes for a moment a drew a deep breath. When she opened her eyes, they were tired and filled with a contemplative expression. "We can be normal. And I want to. But I also know that being normal comes at the cost of ever knowing who I really am. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth it." She looked away. "In the end, I guess being Isabel Evans is worth not being… whoever else I could be. I just… it is a difficult decision to make, you know?"

"Not really," Alex said logically. Isabel shot a confused look at him, and he shrugged. "Well, I don't know what it is like."

"That's alright," Isabel said with a tiny smile. "It's still nice to talk to you about it."

"Yeah, well, I guess it isn't really one of those things you can talk to John about," Alex said coolly.

Isabel's smile faltered, and the atmosphere turned overly polite once again.

* * *

"Where are we?" Maria asked, glancing around the street. They had pulled up in front of a strange looking house, and Michael had gotten out and parked the car, announcing that this was it. 

"Atherton's home," Michael replied quietly, his eyes fixed on the house before him. He glanced briefly at Maria and shook his head, wondering vaguely why she was still here with him. He was about to break into the house of a possibly-crazy, long-dead alien-believer. He had expected Maria to turn him in when they were stranded on the highway, and it had surprised him greatly when she simply asked the driver of the other car for a mechanic.

And the mechanic came, and fixed the engine, which was only overheated after all, and they were on their way again.

And now they were here. Michael knew that Hank wouldn't even notice his absence, and he was fairly certain that Maria welcomed the excuse to avoid Sean. So neither of them had any incentive to leave empty-handed.

The sun was setting behind the hills. The house itself was on the far outskirts of the two, far enough away that there was no one around to observe them. The strange dome was nestled in between two hills, and its whitewashed walls were covered in dust and dirt from years of neglect in the middle of the desert.

Michael started towards the dome, Maria following behind him. They paused outside the door, and Maria pushed a strand of blonde hair out of her eyes. "What do we do now?" she whispered.

Michael shook his head. "Go inside, I guess," he answered diffidently, suddenly unsure of what he was doing. He reached for the doorknob, and some feeling crept along his spine. Fear and something else… something foreign and familiar at the same time.

"Michael?"

Michael shook his head as he glanced at Maria. "Someone's been here. Someone not human," he explained.

Maria jumped back, terror on her face, as every image of enemy aliens came to mind. She looked around frantically, trying to discover any hidden aliens.

"Not now," Michael hissed, rolling his eyes in exasperation. "They were here before. A long time ago."

"How do you know?" Maria asked, calming down a little.

"I just do," Michael said stoically. "I can feel it."

And he ran his hand over the doorknob, using his powers to unlock the door, and shoved the door open. Without another word, he walked into the dimly lit dome.

Maria hesitated, then followed him.

Michael glanced back at his partner-in-crime, a slight frown crinkling around the edges of his eyes. "If you come in, you're an accessory to breaking and entering," he said quietly.

"I know," Maria replied, looking around as her eyes adjusted to the light. They were standing in the entry way to a living room. It looked like a normal living room, with a sofa pushed up against one wall, a few chairs scattered around a coffee table, a bookshelf at the far end of the room, and a lamp by the door.

"It might not be safe," Michael continued.

"I know," Maria repeated.

Michael held her gaze for a beat, then nodded. "Alright, let's take a look around," he said.

* * *

"Dr. Drake?" the nurse appeared at the door to the office, her face flushed with excitement. Drake looked up from his work in curiosity. She was a new nurse, just out of nursing school, and was liable to get excited over simple matters. 

"What is it, Olivia?" he asked patiently, expecting it to be something insignificant.

"It's Ms. DeLuca," Olivia said in a rush. "She's talking in her sleep."

Drake put the papers down on his desk and stood up quickly. Although sleep-talking never seemed like a big deal to the patient's families, it was an important sign to the doctor. It meant that the patient was no longer in a deep coma, and their chances of waking up soon were greatly increased. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Drake had feared that Amy DeLuca might not wake up. It was a possibility that, as a doctor, he had been forced to continue all along, but as the hours turned into days and she was still in her coma… Had she not started sleep-talking, he would have had to inform Maria DeLuca that her mother had a very good chance of being unconscious for the rest of her life.

Which was not something he wanted to do.

So he was relieved that she was talking now.

But there was another matter that also interested him. He had gotten nowhere in his limited research into Michael Guerin, and he hoped that Amy DeLuca might be able to shed some light on the mystery once she woke up.

He pushed the door to her room open and stepped inside, Olivia following. He walked over to the bed and stared down at the frail looking woman lying there. She was mumbling to herself, slurred words that he couldn't quite understand. Leaning over, he struggled to pick out any individual phrases, but came up with nothing.

A beeping sound caused him to turn and glance back at Olivia. Her pager was going off, and she gave him an apologetic look. "Go," he ordered. "I can handle it from here." Olivia nodded and handed him Amy DeLuca's chart, then slipped from the room.

Drake looked back at the bed.

"…didn't… no… can't leave…" Amy mumbled, her words becoming more distinct. "…hot… fire everywhere… truck…" She was having a nightmare of sorts, caught in the memory of the car accident which had thrown her into the coma in the first place. That was also a good sign, it meant that her subconscious remembered what had happened, and lessened the chance that she had incurred any brain damage.

It would be a miracle, Drake reflected, if she came out of the entire experience without any lasting injuries.

"…light… Mich… Guer…"

Drake leaned forward quickly, hoping to catch all the words.

"… green light… door… flying… green… light… green…"

Drake straightened. Green light? The door flying free? He blinked and looked down at Amy. It was possible this was all a dream, but… what if it wasn't?

"You're grasping at straws," he muttered to himself. "There's nothing there. It's just a dream…" But he remembered Ms. Topolski, and he remembered Dr. Greene, and he remembered the oddities in Michael's medical file, and he couldn't quite dismiss it as just a dream.

* * *

Next Chapter: Atherton's Dome

Due: Fri 5/12


	31. Atherton's Dome

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: So, this chapter is pretty much entirely Michael and Maria. Actually, there is almost no one else in it until the very end. So I apologize to those who don't like reading M/M or investigations.

Also, please remember that I have gone completely AU in terms of Atherton's Dome. Forget whatever happened in the show, it won't necessarily happen here. And Nasedo was in the white room since the crash, so he has not had a chance to meet Native Americans or any of that.

* * *

Chapter Thirty: Atherton's Dome

Michael walked over to the bookshelf and looked at it for a moment, his eyes running over the titles of the different volumes. They were all alien-related. Michael let out a slow breath. "This guy had a serious obsession," he said softly, his voice breaking the silence.

Maria glanced over at Michael and shrugged. "And you don't?" she replied pointedly.

Michael rolled his eyes at her and turned back to the books. He pulled one out of the shelf, then another, piling them into his arms and carrying them over to the coffee table.

Maria meanwhile walked over to the hallway at the back of the room and glanced into it. It was dark outside, no light came in through the windows. It was hard to see in the gloom, and Maria wished briefly that she had brought a flashlight with her.

"Don't go down there yet," Michael ordered, not even looking up from the books.

Maria bristled at the order. "Why not?" she demanded.

Michael glanced at her, his eyes serious. "It might not be safe," he replied, as though stating the obvious. Then he paused, and said in a softer tone, "You might get hurt."

Maria swallowed and nodded, walking back towards him. "You got a really bad feeling when you walked in her, didn't you?" she asked rhetorically.

"Yes," Michael admitted, but refused to elaborate on it.

"Was it like the vision you got from the button?" Maria questioned.

It took Michael a moment to figure out what he was referring to, then he remembered the button he had found in Deputy Hannigan's car, and the vision that had accompanied it. Unbidden, images of white walls and a windowless room came to mind. He shook the picture away and glanced over at Maria.

"No," he said at last, decisively. "That was… that was a different sort of danger." He looked down at the books. "A human one."

"But I thought we agreed that the car was stolen by a shape-shifter?" Maria murmured, bending over Michael's shoulder and staring at the cover of the books.

Michael nodded. "I think… I think whatever I saw is where the shape-shifter had been at some point." As he said the words, he knew they were true, but he had no idea how he had even reached that conclusion. The discovery of Atherton's drawings had forced thoughts of the button from his mind, and he had barely given it a second thought since he had found it.

"So you are facing two enemies?" Maria did not like the sound of that.

"I'm not sure," Michael admitted reluctantly. He wasn't sure of that much anymore, although it galled him to admit that.

"I think we should look around. Atherton wouldn't have left any clues in his books," Maria said, straightening and turning away from the seated alien.

"What makes you say that?" Michael asked curiously.

Maria rolled her eyes. "We're looking for a hidden manuscript that may or may not exist somewhere in the house," she said. "If you were going to hide something, would you hide it on a bookshelf?"

Michael thought about that for a moment, then said, "I don't see why not. I mean, it is a book, so…"

"So it is the first place anyone would think to look," Maria finished. "Obviously not a good hiding place." Michael still didn't look convinced, so Maria tried again. "Look, the book that you were reading about Atherton, the one that sent you down this whole crazy road-trip-to-the-middle-of-nowhere, it said that there was a government conspiracy to cover everything up. If the government is in this, Atherton would have hidden his stuff in a much better place than a bookshelf."

"Now who's the believer?" Michael smirked.

"Just call me Mulder," Maria replied with her own grin. At Michael's blank stare, she frowned and continued, "You know, from the X-Files? Mulder and Scully?"

Michael shrugged. "I think Max watches the show sometimes," he replied in a tone that made it perfectly clear he thought the show was ridiculous.

"You have a problem with the show?" Maria demanded.

"It's clichéd," Michael said simply. He walked over to the hallway. "You really want to go down there?" he asked, gesturing into the darkness.

Maria didn't even bother answering, but set off down the hallway. They fumbled through the dark for a moment, then Maria located the doorknob to a room and pushed the door open. She stepped into what appeared to be an office. The faint light of the rising moon came in through the window on the opposite wall, illuminating a single desk, several file cabinets, two chairs, and another bookshelf.

Michael walked instantly over to the desk and started pulling open drawers. There wasn't much in the drawers, just a few odds pieces of paper, pens, a few post cards, and an old newspaper clipping about the famous Roswell crash.

Maria glanced at the garbage can. It was still full of paper, and she frowned slightly. "Michael, I don't think anyone's been in here since Atherton disappeared," she commented, bending down to pull out a scrap of paper with words scrawled across it. It looked like a grocery shopping list.

Michael walked over to the bookshelf and touched the wood gingerly with one hand. Something warm flooded through his skin, and he shook his head. "No," he countered. "Someone… or something… has definitely been here."

Maria didn't respond.

There were gaps in the bookshelf, places were books had obviously stood at one point, but they had been pulled out. Michael examined it closely for a moment, then looked around for the missing books. But the rest of the study appeared to be empty.

Maria walked over to the filing cabinet and pulled a drawer open. She extracted the first file and glanced at it. It was a bunch of newspaper articles about the Roswell crash. The second file was full of titles of books and authors. The third file was filled with interview notes and outlines for books. Maria grabbed this file and brought it over to Michael.

Michael flipped through the pages. "These are his notes for the book Max saw at the library," Michael said, pointing to the top of the first page which has the title "Among Us-Notes" written in block print on it.

"It's all related to Roswell," Maria whispered. She looked up at Michael with wide eyes. "Do you think he actually _knew_ about you?"

"A lot of people suspected," Michael replied. "He obviously didn't have any proof."

Michael put the file down and walked over to the door. "I'm going to see what the other rooms in the house have." Maria followed him out into the hallway, and they groped through the darkness to another door. Michael pulled it open, and they found themselves staring down a flight of stairs into a pitch black basement.

"We need a flashlight," Michael said at last.

Maria glanced over at him. "You're going down there?" she asked incredulously.

"He might have hidden something in the basement," Michael pointed out logically.

"Like what?" Maria asked. "A spaceship?"

But Michael wasn't listening. Instead, he fumbled back along the hallway, disappearing for a moment. Maria stood alone in the semi-darkness, listening to the sound of the wind hitting the sides of the house. It was silent except for that soft hum, so silent she could hear herself breathing. The minutes stretched longer, and she felt fear rise in her chest.

Moving forward slowly, she crept along the passage, her feet making soft thumps on the ground. "Michael?" she called out in a whisper. She remembered what Michael had said about someone or something else having been here… something bad. She shivered and called again, "Michael!"

"I found a flashlight," Michael said, appearing with an old-fashioned flashlight in his hands. He flicked it on, and the yellow beam filled the hallway. A slight frown wrinkled his forehead as he studied Maria's white features. "You okay?" he asked gruffly.

"Yes," Maria said quickly, feeling a little foolish.

Michael nodded and paused in front of the stairs, then started walking into the underground basement. Maria hesitated, then followed him, her heart hammering in her chest.

Michael paused at the bottom of the stairs and looked around. The air was heavy with dust particles. The floor was packed dirt, the basement was unfinished. In fact, it looked more like a underground cave than a basement.

"It's empty," Maria said quietly. "There's nothing here at all."

Michael nodded and walked over to the far wall. He ran his hand over it, expecting the smooth coolness of stone. But the wall was made out of rough rock, as though the basement had actually been dug into the desert floor, but no one had ever bothered to finish the room, leaving it instead as a large gaping hole.

Michael spun around suddenly and looked at the wall directly beneath the stairs. He walked over to it and pressed his hands flat against the surface. Heat expanded from his fingers, making the wall glow with a red light.

"Michael?" Maria questioned, drawing closer. "What are you doing?"

"There's something here," Michael answered.

"What do you mean?" Maria asked in confusion. "It's just a wall."

"No," Michael countered, shaking his head. "There's something here."

"How do you know?"

"I just… I just do," Michael faltered, unable to explain the strange feeling that drew him to that wall. He put some more power behind his hands, forcing the stone to give way. Pieces of rock crumbled to the ground, revealing a smooth surface behind. A surface covered with ink…

Maria stepped forward and stared at the wall for a moment, her eyes fixed on the black drawing. "Is that…?"

Michael nodded. It was the same drawing from the book, the four circles connected by the two crossing lines.

Someone had tried to cover it up. The rocks had been sealed over it, blocking it from view. Had it been Atherton? Michael dismissed the idea. Whoever had covered it up… they couldn't have done it with normal human abilities. The rock had been refigured, the molecules rearranged so that they blended into the rest of the wall.

Whoever had gone to all that trouble… why hadn't they just erased the symbol? Michael touched the wall with one hand, his fingers scraping over the dark etching. Some of the black came off onto his skin and he frowned. If the drawing had been covered by rock, then shouldn't all of the symbol have rubbed away by now? Unless the people who had done this… they had wanted to not only hide the symbol, but to preserve it as well.

But why?

"So… I guess there was a government conspiracy after all," Maria commented.

Michael shook his head and glanced over at Maria. "No," he said. "No, there wasn't."

"But…"

"There was definitely a conspiracy to cover this up," Michael agreed, "but it wasn't a government one." He rubbed his fingers on the wall again, and the symbol blurred slightly. "In fact, I don't think it was even a human one."

* * *

Max jolted suddenly and glanced around the empty highway. It was late at night, and he was still driving. They were getting closer to Marathon. At some point, Tess had fallen asleep, her head leaning against the window, blonde curls falling over her closed eyes. She was breathing slowly, her rhythmic inhales and exhales the only sound in the silent night. 

Max blinked and slowed down, pulling the car over to the side of the road. He had felt something strange, something he couldn't quite place…

Tess opened her eyes as Max turned off the engine. "Wh-what?" she sat up and looked around. "We aren't there yet," she said hoarsely, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "Why are we stopping?"

"Did you feel that?" Max demanded. "Do you feel it now?"

"Feel what?" Tess questioned, wide awake now.

"I'm not sure," Max whispered. "I just felt… something happened, Tess. Something changed."

"Changed? What do you mean?" Tess looked at Max in concern. Part of her almost thought that Max was simply overly tired, but the other part knew to trust his instincts, and it was scared. What had he felt?

"I don't know," Max answered honestly. "I just… something's happening. We're close to something. I can feel it."

* * *

Next Chapter: Signs and Symbols 

Due: Fri 5/19

Author's note: So, the whole thing with the four-square symbol and Max might be a little vague. To clear it up, what he felt in the car was the symbol being smudged by Michael… It will all make sense a little later.


	32. Symbols and Signs

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: This chapter focuses mostly on the pod squad, but I will get back to Alex and Liz and the others in Roswell in the next chapter.

* * *

Chapter Thirty-One: Symbols and Signs

Isabel paced back and forth across the floor of her room. Max had called earlier in the afternoon to tell his parents that he was staying with Michael that night because they needed to study. Her parents had seen right through the lie, as usual, but had not pressed Max on his reasons for not coming home. Isabel was fairly certain that her mother was convinced Max was over at Michael's to help Michael deal with some familial crisis, and was for once thankful that her mother cared enough for Michael to allow her son to spend such late hours over there. It bought them all some time.

But not much time. If Max wasn't back by tomorrow night…

Where was he? He hadn't called her at all during the day, and it worried her. Had something happened to her? She knew she was being paranoid, but she couldn't help it. Three of the people who she considered family where out there somewhere, possibly walking right into enemy hands.

She walked over to the window and stared out at the night sky. High above, the stars shone brightly, and the moon cast a faint glow on the world below. Shadows spilled out from the trees, crisscrossing back and forth across the yard.

Why hadn't Max called?

Isabel stared at the cell phone on her desk. She had tried calling Max, Tess, Michael, and Maria, but each had turned off their cell phones. She left messages on each phone, but that was an hour ago, and no one had returned the call yet.

Isabel turned and walked over to her bookshelf, then pulled out last year's yearbook. She flipped through the pages until she came to Max's picture and placed a finger on the edge of his face. She closed her eyes and concentrated, but found that Max was awake, and she could not dream-walk him. She switched the page to Michael, and then to Tess, and finally to Maria, and found that they were all awake as well.

It frustrated her, this limitation on her gift. She could only enter other people's minds when they were asleep, and right now the people she wanted to talk to were awake.

Which mean that they were alive, right? That was something…wasn't it?

They couldn't be dead. Isabel shook her head, shoving the thoughts away. She would know if something happened to Max. She would feel it.

But what was this gut wrenching feeling that kept telling her something was wrong? What was this feeling in the pit of her stomach that kept screaming that her family was in danger?

From downstairs, she heard the echo of knuckles on wood, and wondered who could possibly be at the door at this hour. She tossed the yearbook on her bed and walked back to window, leaning out and glancing at the door below.

Her heart momentarily stopped beating and her breath caught in her throat.

It was Hank Guerin.

She turned and hurried to the door, slipping out into the hallway and creeping down the steps. She paused on the last stair, hiding in the shadows as she watched her mother walk to the door and pull it open.

"Mrs. Evans," Hank Guerin greeted as the door swung open.

Mrs. Evans expression turned glacial. "Mr. Guerin," she replied with a short nod of her head. Her fingers turned white as they gripped the door handle, as though she was trying to keep her temper under control. "What brings you here at this hour?"

"Looking for that lazy brat of mine," Hank replied sourly.

Isabel closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. Now her mother knew that Max wasn't at Michael's.

"Michael is neither lazy nor a brat," Mrs. Evans snapped back, her face flushed slightly. She liked Michael, liked him a lot, and it galled her that the foster care system would have placed any child in Hank Guerin's care.

"Is he here?" Hank pressed, ignoring Mrs. Evans statement.

"No," Mrs. Evans said shortly. "No, he isn't."

"Well, if you see him, tell him that I'm lookin' for him," Hank demanded. "And that guidance lady is too."

Isabel opened her eyes and stared at Hank in complete surprise. Her presence was still unnoticed by the two adults in the room, and that was something to be thankful for, because her face had gone completely pale and her mouth hung open.

The guidance lady looking for Michael?

Did that mean…?

"Think her name was Topolski," Hank continued, shrugging carelessly. "She been 'round asking some questions and stuff 'bout him, and I don't want him causing me no trouble, you hear?"

Isabel turned and fled up the stairs to her room, closing the door sharply behind her. She grabbed her cell phone and dialed Max's number, listening as it rang.

"Answer the damn phone, Max!"

After a moment, a tired female voice demanded harshly, "What is it, Isabel?"

Isabel almost laughed in relief. "Tess," she said quickly. "Tess, tell Max that Hank was here."

"Hank?" Tess' voice became more alert.

"Hank _Guerin_ was at the house? Why?" Isabel could hear Max in the background, demanding more explanation.

"Apparently Ms. Topolski was asking questions about Michael. She came to see Hank," Isabel explained, her words rushing together as she struggled to get the entire explanation out.

There was a silence from the other end, and then Tess said slowly, "She was asking questions about Michael?" Tess repeated.

"Tess?" Isabel felt the fear in her stomach tightened. "Tess, what are you thinking?"

"She asked Trudy questions about me," Tess said slowly. "She's been asking about me also."

"You don't think…?" Isabel breathed.

Tess was silent for a moment, then she replied, "I don't know what to think, but we need to be careful. Max and I have almost caught up with Michael and Maria. We'll let you know what we find when we get there."

Isabel agreed and hung up. As she did so, she realized that she had forgotten to tell Max that their mother now knew he wasn't at Michael's. She was about to redial Max's phone number when there was a knock on her door, and her mother stepped into the room.

"Isabel, honey, do you know where Max is?" Mrs. Evans asked, walking over to Isabel and taking a seat next to her on the bed.

"He's not with Michael?" Isabel asked, trying her best to fix an innocent expression to her features.

"Mr. Guerin just came by looking for Michael," Mrs. Evans said. "He said that the guidance counselor at school had been looking for Michael." There was a heavy pause, then Mrs. Evans asked, "Is Michael in some sort of trouble?"

Isabel shook her head slowly. "Not that I know of," she replied, holding her breath as she watched her mother's face.

Mrs. Evans was not easily fooled. "Isabel, honey," she murmured gently, "you know you can tell me anything, right?"

"I know," Isabel replied. And she did know she could tell her mother anything.

Anything but this.

"Because your father and I care about Michael a lot, and if there is something going on with him, we can help," Mrs. Evans continued, reaching up and pushing a strand of Isabel's hair out of her tawny eyes. "You know that we care, don't you?" she said, staring her daughter straight in the eyes.

Isabel swallowed. "I know, Mom," she said. Her mother did care about Michael, much more than Hank ever had.

"And there isn't anything you want to tell me?" Mrs. Evans pressed.

Isabel looked away. She needed to tell her mother something, anything, to make her less suspicious. But what could she say? How could she protect her secret and allay her mother's suspicions.

"Hank's been… drunk a lot," Isabel started. "And so Max wanted Michael to stay here, but Michael wouldn't. But he and Maria are sort of… seeing each other. And since Maria is living by herself right now, Michael went over there, and Max went with him to try and convince him to talk to someone about Hank," Isabel lied. She looked her mother straight in the eyes, hated herself for what she was doing, and said, "But Max didn't want to tell you because he promised Michael he wouldn't tell anyone about Hank."

Mrs. Evans accepted the story without question and stood up. "Max is a good friend, but I don't want him getting caught up in this," she said, worry for her son filling her mind. "If he can't convince Michael to report Hank, your father and I are going to have to do something."

Isabel nodded, wondering how she would tell Michael that not only did her mother now think he was dating Maria, but now he needed to talk to the Child Protection Services about Hank, or her parents might do it for him. And on top of all of that, Isabel couldn't help but wonder how exactly Ms. Topolski fit into this whole mess.

Little did she know, someone else, on the other side of town, was wondering exactly the same thing.

* * *

Sean stood inside Ms. Topolski's apartment, staring around the living room. The woman was asleep in the other room, so it was dangerous to be here, but he didn't mind. He knew he could more than protect himself, should there be a reason to fight. And right now he had other, more important things on his mind.

He crept silently to the door at the far end of the room and gently eased it open. It lead into what looked like a small study. The wall was covered with filing cabinets, and the desk in the center of the room was piled with file folders and stacks of paper. A laptop was pushed to one side of the desk, and a long black coat hung over the chair. A few crumpled pieces of paper had been tossed into the trashcan near a floor lamp.

Sean closed the door behind him, sending the room into darkness. He didn't want to risk turning on the light, so he held out his hand and a faint glow appeared on his palm, casting a flickering green light around him, and illuminating the papers on the desk.

He pushed through them, scanning the contents of each one. Then he turned his attention to the file folders. The top one was marked 'Michael Guerin,' and Sean lifted it carefully, concerned. He opened it, and his eyes fell on legal papers from the Child Protection Services, notes from school teachers and counselors, and a few handwritten remarks on loose papers at the bottom of the pile. Sean picked up the last page and read it, his lip curling in disgust. Michael Guerin was a foster child in a possibly abusive home who was failing all his classes and hiding secrets.

It was pathetic, Sean thought with aversion. How could the great Antarian General have fallen so far?

The file under Michael's was labeled Liz Parker, and Sean stared at it for a moment, wondering. He had seen the brunette, and knew that she was friends with his 'daughter.' However, he had yet to meet her, so he was slightly unsure how she played into the entire complicated mess. What had she done to warrant having a file?

He opened it, holding his glowing hand over the first page, and read it. And his eyes opened with shock. Ms. Topolski suspected that someone, namely Max Evans or Michael Guerin, had _healed_ the human waitress? It had to be the King, he was the only one with that power, but why? Why would he risk so much for a human? Sean would have understood if the King had healed the Queen, the Princess, of the General, but a human?

He would have to pay closer attention to Liz Parker. She could be something important, some form of leverage that would help him in the future.

Although he was starting to wonder if his plan was even worthwhile. He wanted to control the Royal Four, but they were nothing like their previous counterparts. Were they even worth the trouble?

He would have to wait and see.

He flipped to the next file, noted it was labeled 'Tess Harding' and was about to open it, when he heard movements from the room next to the study. It was just someone shifting in bed, and it was unlikely the Ms. Topolski was even awake, but he didn't want to take the chance. He couldn't be there when she woke up. He extinguished the light in his hand and slipped silently to the door, creeping across the living room to the door, and slipping out into the night.

As he walked down the street, he realized he had learned one important thing from the evening.

The guidance counselor was a threat, and she might need to be eliminated sometime in the near future.

* * *

"So Ms. Topolski is asking questions?" Max remarked as he pulled the car off the road. They twisted through a small dirt path that looked like it hadn't been used in years. The car bumped over the rocks, and Max squinted in the darkness, then glanced down at his map. He had circled the address for Atherton's Dome and was trying to navigate his way through these desert back roads. "That can't be good."

Tess glanced over at him and sighed. "One problem at a time, Max."

"Yeah…" Max pulled the car on a sharp right and Maria's car came into view. He and Tess exchanged a glance, then Max parked the car and climbed out, Tess following him.

Max walked towards the dome shaped house nestled between the cliffs, his body tense, his eyes constantly wandering around the landscape, looking for danger. Tess hesitated for a moment by the car, a sixth sense making her wary. She glanced behind her, towards the street they had come on, and couldn't shake the feeling that there was something she should have noticed, but didn't.

"Tess?" Max turned around and called quietly to the other alien.

Tess hurried over to Max, and asked, "Should we call Michael? I don't think walking in on him is a good idea, he might attack us before he realizes it is us." Michael was always prone to acting first and thinking later, and Tess didn't want to run the risk of him doing something rash.

Max nodded and dialed Michael's phone number into his cell phone. After a few rings, Michael picked up and Max said briskly, "Tess and I are here, and what the hell did you think you were doing?"

"Later, Maxwell," came Michael's reply. "Come into the house and down to the basement, there's something you should see." Then he hung up.

Max exchanged another confused glance with Tess, who shrugged, and the two of them set off towards the house. As the reached the door, Tess paused, again getting the feeling that something was wrong, something she couldn't quite place. She slanted a look at Max, but he was staring at the house, an odd expression on his face.

"There's something…" Max breathed. "There's something here, I can feel it." He reached over and pushed the door open, stepping into the dark living room. Tess followed, and the two closed the door and moved further into the house, looking for the stairs to the basement.

Outside, another car pulled off the road and stopped near the house.

* * *

Max, Michael, Tess, and Maria stood before the strange symbol on the wall. Maria was staring at the three aliens, feeling out of place. She knew somehow that it should have been Isabel standing there, not her. It should have been the four aliens together, because this strange symbol was a clue to who they were and where they came from, and the four of them should have been discovery that together.

Tess walked over to the wall and pressed her hand against the ink, and some of the black rubbed off on her fingers. She rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger thoughtfully, then sniffed the black substance suspiciously. Turning to Michael, she asked, "Do you have any idea what this is? It's not ink or charcoal, and I don't think its paint."

"That's what I felt," Max announced. All eyes turned to him, and he continued, "On the road, when I felt something change… I just felt that again. When you touched the symbol, when you smudged it."

"It was preserved," Michael cut in quickly. "That symbol, it was hidden behind the wall, but it was also preserved as well. As though they didn't want it to be touched."

"Who?" Tess asked. "Who did this?"

Michael shook his head. "I don't know, but I don't think they were human." He hesitated, then said, "I think Atherton might have been close to something, and these…whatever they are…covered it up."

"So are they allies?" Max asked thoughtfully. "Are they on our side?"

"No," Michael said emphatically, with so much conviction that Tess and Max looked at him in surprise. He paused again, wondering how to explain what he knew. He didn't even know what he knew, or how he knew it, he just… "They aren't friends. I can just… I just know."

Max nodded. "Alright," he said, accepting Michael's words without question. A vague memory tugged at the back of his mind, reminding him of a time when Michael would advise him, a time when he trusted Michael's words implicitly. Then the memory was gone, and Max was left with the feeling that something had just slipped through his fingers.

Tess turned and touched the symbol again, tracing the lines with her fingers. She paused where they intersected at the middle of the x.

_They stood in front of the symbol, staring at it with apprehension. One of them raised his hand as though to destroy it, but another quickly shook his head. Another reached out and touched the wall on the side of the symbol, and slowly the wall expanded over the symbol, hiding it from sight._

Tess opened her eyes in shock. Michael and Max were both standing next to her, waiting impatiently for her to explain what she had seen. Maria stood back from the three of them, still the outsider, still unsure of what to do.

"I think you're right about this being covered up by nonhumans," Tess murmured. "I saw… things. People, I guess. They were hazy… I couldn't make out their features… I didn't hear words, but… I could feel what they felt… they were worried… they couldn't destroy it so… they covered it… preserved it… with powers." She paused, turning wide blue eyes to Max. "They were definitely not human."

"Do you think you are somehow connected to the symbol?" Michael questioned, glancing over at Max.

"But why would it be just Max?" Tess argued. "Why not all of us?"

"I don't know, but if the other extraterrestrials didn't want to destroy the symbol, and if Max somehow can feel when it's being changed, then maybe he's linked to it," Michael pointed out logically.

"And that's why the others didn't want to destroy it," Max mused. "They didn't want me to know it had been changed."

"Maybe they didn't want you to find it, and they thought if you felt the change, it would lead you here," Michael suggested.

"Do you think it is something special about this copy of the symbol, or you are connected to all copies of this…" Tess waved her hand at the wall, "cross-circle-thing."

"I don't know," Max answered honestly.

"It would be interesting to find out," Michael said. "I mean, what is the symbol is like… your symbol or something?"

"How would we know?" Tess asked, glancing between the two other aliens.

"We need a way to test the theory," Maz mused.

"What would it be?" Michael asked.

"Are you guys idiots or something?" Maria demanded suddenly, and the other three jumped, having forgotten her presence. She was staring at them in incredulity, unable to believe that they would have overlooked something so simple.

"What?" Michael demanded.

Maria shook her head. "You want to know if Max is linked to all versions of that symbol?" she asked. She dropped to her knees on the ground, and began to draw on the dirt floor, carefully copying the symbol from the wall. After she was done, she looked up at Max and rubbed her hand over the dirt-drawn symbol, erasing it. "Did you feel that?" she asked.

Max shook his head wordlessly.

"Then I think it is safe to say that you aren't connected to all symbols," Maria said sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

"So what makes that one special?" Michael asked, pointing to the wall.

Before anyone had a chance to answer, Tess hissed a warning, "Footsteps," and Michael quickly turned off the flashlight, plunging the room into darkness. From above, they could hear the sound of footsteps moving along the hall.

"We need to get out of here," Michael said quickly, heading towards the stairs.

"You'll walk right into them," Maria argued, grabbing Michael's arm and pulling him back.

"Tess can get us out of here," Michael said with a glance back at the blonde.

Tess swallowed. "I can't mind-warp and walk at the same time," she objected. "Besides, we don't even know who they are," she continued, gesturing towards the top level.

"Well, if we stay down here we are trapped," Max pointed out. "We need to get out."

"How?"

The footsteps were getting closer.

"Get rid of the symbol," Max ordered, nodding at Michael as he stared up at the floor above them and tried to come up with a plan.

Michael turned and closed his eyes, willing a small amount of energy to come to the palm of his hand. The he directed the power outward, shoving it towards the wall. It hit the symbol, and the symbol instantly disappeared, the black lines turning to dust and floating to the ground. But the disappearance of the symbol caused the rest of the wall to suddenly explode backwards, as though it was trying to counteract the strength of Michael's power. Bits of stone and shards of rock flew into the air, and the force of the explosion sent Michael and Maria sprawling. Maria hit her head against the far wall of the unfinished basement, and slipped into darkness.

"Maria!" Michael groaned, twisting to look at the unconscious girl.

The footsteps overheard ran towards the door to the basement.

Max and Tess, standing more towards the stairs, had escaped most of the shockwave. They hurried over to Michael and Maria, Max kneeling down by Maria's form to make sure she was uninjured. Despite a bump on her head, she seemed alright, so Max turned to Michael, who was cradling his arm at an awkward angle.

As Max reached out to heal Michael's broken arm, Tess turned and looked up at the stairs in time to see the door above them open.

* * *

Next Chapter: So, I haven't actually come up with a title for it yet. But it is mostly written, and hopefully a title will occur to me before I post it.

Due: Sunday 5/28


	33. The Orb

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's Note: So I never did come up with a good title, and I just went with the obvious one. Also, for anyone who is wondering who is at the top of the stairs, read the last few lines of the first part of the chapter "Needle in a Haystack" right after Tess and Max leave the Crashdown.

* * *

Chapter Thirty-Two: The Orb 

Alex glanced up from his studying at the sound of the knock on his bedroom door. Expecting it to be his mother, he called out, "Come in," and then looked back at his textbook. He was not particularly interested in the subject at hand, but he needed to study or he wouldn't pass the test next week.

"Hey," a voice said.

Alex looked up in surprise. "Liz," he greeted the brunette. "Hey."

Liz flashed a hesitant smile. She was leaning against his doorframe, her dark hair falling over her face and partially hiding her worried eyes. She bit her lower lip nervously, a habit of hers, and looked away.

"Is everything okay?" Alex asked, fear instantly gripping him. Had the others run into some sort of trouble on their wild goose chase across state borders? Was Maria alright?

Liz shrugged. "I haven't heard anything from any of them," she said quietly. There was a silence, then she continued, "Not even Max…" She pushed her hair out of her eyes and took a few steps into the room, closing the door behind her. It was the first time she had ever felt this awkward around Alex, but since their recent fight, she couldn't quite figure out how to talk to him. He had been so mad at her, and then Kyle had said almost the same thing to her and…

Everything was just so confusing.

"I think at this point no news is probably good news," Alex said confidently, although some doubt flickered briefly in his eyes. "They would have told us if something happened to Maria."

"But nothing's going to happen to her," Liz said, almost defiantly, as though daring fate to contradict her.

Alex nodded and studied Liz for a moment. She clearly had come here for a reason, but he wasn't sure what it was. Did she think he had any knowledge about Max and the others that she didn't? That didn't seem very plausible to him, because Max would have called Liz directly if anything happened.

"How did the question assignment with Isabel go?" Liz asked, twirling a strand of hair around one finger and taking a seat on Alex's bed.

Alex grimaced. "Not well," he admitted slowly. "I mean, I got all the answers down, but I wasn't able to… Things between Isabel and I are just really… weird."

Liz laughed at the frustrated expression on Alex's face, then said, "Hey, if you guys are meant to be, then you'll happen at some point."

"Do you believe in all that junk?" Alex asked curiously. "Soul mates and fate and destiny?"

Liz shrugged. "I didn't," she said quietly. "But now that I've met Max, I'm not so sure." She closed her eyes for a moment, picturing Max's features. Then she sighed and opened her eyes, looking at Alex. "Do you have plans for Homecoming?"

Alex shook his head. "Not really. I figured I'd just see what Maria was doing since she probably doesn't have plans either." He was silent for a moment, looking at Liz expectantly. This was the point in the conversation where she was supposed to say something, but she didn't. Unsure of what else to do, he continued, "Do you have plans?"

"Um… well, Max hasn't really asked me, but since we're dating and all…" Liz blushed slightly and let the end of the sentence drift into silence. Max hadn't even mentioned Homecoming to her, and the dance was only a week away. She assumed he was going to go, but now that she thought about it, he had never said anything…

"Well, if Max doesn't want to go, you can always come with me," Alex said carelessly, shrugging.

Liz flashed a hesitant smile and nodded. "Thanks, that would be… great," she said at last. She was silent for a moment, then asked, "Have you thought about asking Isabel to the dance?"

Alex frowned and shook his head. "I don't know if that's a good idea," he replied. "I mean, we are barely even friends." He seemed uncomfortable by the topic of conversation and stared down at his hands.

There was an awkward silence while neither friend knew what to say, then Liz said in a rush, "I'm sorry."

Alex looked up in confusion. "What?" he asked, not understanding what she was apologizing for. It wasn't her fault that he and Isabel couldn't even speak to each other without saying something they didn't mean and would regret later.

"About ignoring you and Maria," Liz said. She pulled her knees into her chest and rested her feet on the edge of Alex's bed, her back up against the wall. "I'm sorry that I haven't really paid any attention to you guys. And… I should have gone with Max and Tess to make sure that Maria was okay. I shouldn't have just let him tell me… tell us… what to do. I'm… I'm sorry."

Alex smiled slightly, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. "That's alright," he said, reaching out and taking Liz's hand. His words were sincere, but still diffident, as though he wasn't quite sure if he should be saying them. "I mean… things have been a little crazy lately. And as long as you know that you're drifting away… then we can fix the problem… right?"

"Right," Liz agreed. Again, neither knew what to say, so Liz hurried on, "Well, I probably should go, but I'll see you tomorrow in school. And I'll let you know if we hear anything about Maria." She stood up, and Alex nodded, turning away from her and looking back at his textbook.

Liz turned and walked from the room, closing the door behind her.

* * *

It wasn't gentle, it wasn't discreet. It wasn't careful. It wasn't planned out. It was purely instinctual, purely brute force, and it was _nothing_ a good mind-warp should be.

Before she even knew what she was doing, Tess had forced her way into the minds of the people on the stairs. She barely had time to register that it was two humans, two FBI agents, before she had slammed through the barriers around the human mind and found herself caught in the whirlwind of thoughts, feelings, and memories.

And then, quite suddenly, she was out of their minds, and she realized in surprise that the two agents had collapsed at the top of the stairs.

Michael turned to her in shock. "What did you do?" he asked.

Tess shook her head. "I don't… I don't know. I wanted to mind-warp them, to hide us, but I didn't have time to… to think about it… so I just… I just went into their minds and… I think they're unconscious…" She licked her dy lips, nervously. She had never lost control of a mind-warp like that, and it scared her. Her gift was too dangerous not to have control over it.

Maria groaned at that point and opened her eyes, looking around her in confusion. "What happened?" she asked, pushing herself to her feet and touching her forehead gingerly. She had a nasty bump, but other than that, she had seemed to avoid any other injury.

"Here, let me heal that," Max offered, extending his hand towards Maria.

"No," Maria said quickly, pushing his hands away. Max raised an eyebrow at her, and she felt her cheeks heat up as color suffused her face. "I just… I mean… thank you, but I'm okay." She stood unsteadily and glanced over at the wall where the symbol had once been.

Michael stood up as well, and tested his newly healed arm. "Thanks," he said to Max.

But Max wasn't looking at him. He was staring at the wall, at the cavity that had appeared when the wall exploded. The hole was small, and it was centered exactly where the two lines of the x had crossed each other.

Max walked over to the wall and reached into the hole, pulling out an orb. He held it in his hand. It felt heavier than he would have expected, given its size, and something about it seemed familiar. He thought vaguely that he should know what the orb was for, but the knowledge escaped him.

"What is that?" Maria asked, joining Max.

"Why don't we worry about it later?" Tess suggested, her eyes still on the two men at the top of the stairs. "I want to get out of here."

The others nodded in agreement, and the four of them quickly climbed up the stairs and made their way through the dark house. It wasn't until they were outside again, until they were at their cars, away from the house, from the strange symbol, from the FBI agents, that they stopped and broke the uneasy silence.

"What is that?" Maria repeated, gesturing towards the orb.

Max shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted. "But… I feel like I should." Michael and Tess nodded, each agreeing with Max.

"Do you think it belonged to Atherton?" Michael questioned, reaching for the orb. He took it and held it tightly, and a slight tingling passed through his fingers and down the length of his arm.

"It's definitely alien," Max countered. "If it belonged to Atherton, he must have found it somewhere."

"Do you think this is why he claimed he had proof of alien existence?" Maria asked, glancing between Max and Michael.

"He said… in that book… he said that the symbol, the x and the squares, that was his proof," Max replied thoughtfully. "If this is somehow linked to that…"

"It was hidden behind the symbol," Michael pointed out. "And when I destroyed the symbol, the orb was revealed. They could be linked."

"But someone hid it," Max said with a sigh. "Tess said, in her vision, she saw people hiding that symbol. Someone covered it up." He turned to Tess for confirmation, realizing at the same time that she had been unusually quiet throughout the conversation. In fact, she was barely paying attention to them, but instead, she was staring back at dome with a pensive expression on her face.

"Tess?" Michael called, brining the blonde alien out of her thoughts.

Tess turned back to them, her eyes dark with worry. "In my vision it was aliens that hid that symbol," she said, repeating Max's earlier words. She glanced over at Michael and continued, "And Michael said the danger he felt in the house was an alien one, not a human one."

"So?" Maria asked impatiently.

"So it is safe to assume that the FBI had no idea that this was here," Tess said, gesturing back to the house. "The symbol, the orb… it was aliens who covered it up, not humans."

"Why does that matter?" Michael asked with annoyance.

"Because we just lead the FBI here!" Tess snapped. "We just lead them right to this house, to proof of alien existence."

There was a silence while the other three absorbed the truth in Tess' words. Finally Michael spoke up.

"We destroyed the symbol, we have the orb. They won't find anything."

"We don't know that," Tess retorted. "What if there is something in Atherton's house that we overlooked? Something the other aliens weren't didn't hide? What if there is still something there?" She shook her head angrily. "We were too careless."

"Can't you erase their memories?" Maria asked. "Make them not remember that we were here? I mean, they only saw the cars, so we could…"

"No," Tess cut in. "It won't work. If I erase their memory of our cars, they are going to wake up with no idea why they are here. But then they'll return to the FBI, and someone in the FBI might know why they were here, and they'll start asking questions, and then… it will be like advertising to the entire FBI that we've got the power to manipulate memories."

"Make them forget that they work for the FBI," Maria suggested.

"Or we could just kill them," Michael suggested. All eyes turned to him and he said defensively, "I was kidding."

"They work for the FBI, which means that it is very likely other people in the agency knew they were following us. Those people will be waiting for a report. Anything we do will just raise more questions for them."

"Tess is right," Max said in frustration. "We just led the FBI here, and we have no way of covering it up."

"At least we have the orb and the symbol is destroyed," Michael argued.

Tess glared at him. "Yeah, that makes up for you being stupid enough to start this whole mess," she hissed.

"I didn't…" Michael started to argue back, but Max cut in, wanting to forestall the inevitable quarrel.

"Let's just go home. We can talk about this more tomorrow. But it's a long drive back to Roswell, and we want to get there before school starts or our parents will be asking questions as well."

Michael and Maria walked back to Maria's car and Tess followed Max to his car. A moment later the cars were gone, and the dome-shaped house sat silently under the inky sky.

* * *

"It's two in the morning. Is Tess back yet?" Valenti asked as he walked into the living room. Kyle was still up, sitting on the sofa, reading.

"No," Kyle replied, glancing over at his father. "She said she was going to be out really late, and might not come back at all tonight."

"Did she say where she was?" Valenti asked.

Kyle gave a dry chuckle. "Yeah. She said she was _out_." He rolled his eyes, then tossed his book on the sofa and stood up. "I'm going to bed."

"Good night," Valenti said absently.

"Good night, Dad," Kyle replied and walked past his father into his bedroom.

Valenti walked over to the sofa and sunk into the cushions. He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking, but as soon as he did, the image of Amy DeLuca, unconscious and injured, flashed through his mind. It had been happening a lot lately, these unwanted visions.

And now Maria's father was back in town.

Valenti had yet to meet him, and he had little desire to change that. As far as he was concerned, the man was not a part of Amy or Maria's life, and never had been, so it should remain like that.

But why hadn't Amy divorced him?

Valenti sighed in frustration. He had been dating Amy for a while now, and she had never even mentioned to him that she was still technically married to someone else. Why? What was she afraid would happen?

Why hadn't she divorced him?

Did she still love him?

He wished he knew the answer to that.

But unfortunately, it was a question that couldn't be answered until Amy woke up.

If she woke up…

He pushed away that treacherous thought. It had only been six days since the accident, six days that she had been unconscious. She could wake up at any time.

Valenti sighed and stood up. He glanced up at the ceiling and said, "Well, I've never really prayed before, but, um… if you could help out now… I really want… need… her to wake up. For Maria. For me. For herself. Please."

He turned and left the living room, turning off the lights as he did so.

* * *

Next Chapter: Mistakes and Misunderstandings 

Due: Fri June 10


	34. Mistakes and Misunderstandings

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Alright, so again, I'm not sure the geography of New Mexico and Texas, but for the sake of the story, assume that Maria, Michael, Max, and Tess arrived back in Roswell before school began the next day. This chapter had less alien stuff and more relationship stuff in it, so be aware that it doesn't really advance the sci-fi plot that much. Also, although Tess' friends will continue to make some of an appearance in the story, I do want to reiterate that they are not that important and you don't need to bother to figure out who is who or who they are dating. The only one who will have a large role in the plot is Trudy, the others are just there because I felt it was important to remember that there were more than just eight students in the school.

* * *

Chapter Thirty-Three: Mistakes and Misunderstandings

Liz closed her locker and glanced up and down the hallway nervously. Maria had called her about half and hour ago, saying that they were close to Roswell. They had driven all night, and all four were probably tired, but they wanted to get back for school. The less questions people asked, the better.

Maria had also mentioned that they had found something important, but she didn't want to talk about it over the phone. They would have a meeting after school, maybe at the Crashdown, and discuss it there.

"Hey, stranger."

Liz spun around quickly and found herself staring into Maria's amused eyes. She hadn't heard the blonde approach, and was startled. But she quickly regained her composure and flashed Maria a relieved smile. Hugging her friend, she said, "I'm so glad you're safe."

"Thanks, chica," Maria replied with a laugh. "I'm glad also."

Liz stared at Maria's forehead with a frown. "You've got hurt," she said, eyeing the purple and blue bruise near Maria's hairline. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"I'll tell you later," Maria replied, glancing around the hallway meaningfully. There were too many people in the hallway to discuss alien business safely.

Liz nodded. "Okay," she said. "Coming to class?"

Maria nodded and the two friends started towards their classroom. "Max is back also," Maria commented casually. "I think he's looking for you."

Liz's head snapped up and she turned to look at Maria. But she pushed aside the desire to run and find Max and said, "I'm sure I'll see him at some point today. Tell me about the car ride. Did you and Michael try to kill each other?"

Maria raised an eyebrow at Liz, surprised. She had fully expected Liz to disappear the moment she mentioned Max. She smiled widely, happily, and launched into a detailed rant about Michael. Liz nodded and laughed at each of Maria's complaints, occasionally agreeing with her friend's frustration and Michael's lack of manners, impulsiveness, and complete and utter disregard for people's property, such as cars.

"Oh," Maria said abruptly, "and you might want to avoid Tess as much as possible today."

"Why?" Liz asked. She didn't really mind avoiding the fourth alien, she certainly had no intention of seeking her out, but she was curious what could have happened to make Tess angry at the others.

"I can't tell you now," Maria replied, "but she's livid at Michael, and by extension everyone else in the group. Because we're all reckless and stupid." Maria rolled her eyes, and Liz stifled a laugh.

It felt good to talk like this again, to be friends again.

Liz hesitated, then said diffidently, "I was wondering if I could come over some time tonight. You know… to meet your father."

Maria's eyes widened and she nodded slowly. "Yeah… I'd like that."

* * *

Michael narrowed his eyes at Isabel, praying that he had understood her wrong. "What did you just say?"

Isabel swallowed nervously and looked away. "I had to tell my Mom something, Michael. I had to, or she would have asked too many questions."

"So you told her that I was dating Maria and that I was going to talk to the Child Protection Services?" Michael asked in disbelief.

"I didn't tell her that you were going to talk to them," Isabel rushed to contradict him. "But she said… well, she said if you didn't… then she would," she finished, her voice getting softer.

"Why does your mother have to interfere?" Michael snarled. "Why can't she just leave it alone? It isn't any of her business!"

"Michael…" Isabel started, but Michael wasn't done yet.

"She shouldn't stick her nose into other people's business," he fumed.

"She's doing this because she cares, Michael," Isabel snapped back icily. "She cares about _you_. She wants to help."

Michael shook his head. "I don't need her to care. I don't need her help." He turned away and slammed his fist into the locker. Isabel glanced around the hall worriedly, but none of the students seemed to notice the disturbance.

"Michael…"

"If I talk to the Child Protection Services and they move me out of Hank's care, I could end up in a completely different state," Michael hissed, interrupting once again. "Away from the three of you. How could you do this? How could you _let _her do this?"

Isabel closed her eyes. "They might not take you out of Roswell, Michael," she whispered.

Michael rolled his eyes. "There aren't any other foster care homes here that would take me," he retorted. "Not with my track record." He ran a hand through his hair and turned away from Isabel. "Thanks, Izzy. This is just great," he ground out before walking away.

Isabel stared after him, at a complete loss for what to do.

* * *

"Jason asked me to the Homecoming Dance," Trudy announced excitedly as she reached Tess' locker. "We're going together."

Tess turned to look at her friend in surprise. "You and Jason?" she asked. She hesitated, torn between congratulating her friend and feeling sympathy for Kyle. "That's…"

Trudy frowned, seeing the expression in Tess' eyes. "It's okay," she said quickly, understandingly. "I know you can't be completely happy for me. Sibling loyalty and all."

Tess sighed. "No, I am happy for you, Trudy. I really am. Kyle's been an idiot in regards to you lately anyway." She closed her locker and pushed her hair out of her eyes. "So, are you coming with Chris and I?" she asked.

"Yeah. You're going with Sara and Cliff also?" Tess nodded in agreement, and Trudy continued, "So we'll join you. What are your before-the-dance plans?"

Tess shrugged. "I think we were going to talk about it over lunch," she replied. Glancing down the hallway, she saw Jessica talking to Sara and Cliff. Tess waved at them, and they waved back before heading in the other direction towards their class. "Any idea who Jessica is going with?" Tess asked, turning back to Trudy.

"Yeah, I think David asked her," Trudy replied. The two girls set off towards their own class, and Tess digested the information that Trudy had given her. She knew they would all go to the dance as a group, and she wondered vaguely who Kyle would go with. Whoever he ended up asking, it would most likely turn into an interesting evening.

"How long do you think it will take Kyle to learn that I'm going with Jason?" Trudy asked worriedly as they paused outside the classroom door. "I kind of wonder how he'll take it."

Tess raised an eyebrow at her friend. "Do you care?" she questioned with a smirk.

Trudy looked at Tess sharply. "No," she lied, completely unconvincingly. "I don't care what he thinks."

Tess nodded slowly as her gaze fell on Kyle's approaching figure. "That's probably good," she commented dryly, and Trudy turned to follow her gaze.

"So, you and Jason, huh?" Kyle asked as he reached the two girls. Tess shot him a warning look which he pointedly ignored, continuing to glare at Trudy.

"Yeah," Trudy said, shifting uncomfortably. "He asked me to the dance a few minutes ago."

"That's great!" Kyle said cheerfully, insincerely. He gave her a smile, which was really more of a grimace, and his eyes narrowed.

"Do you have a problem with that?" Trudy asked coldly.

Tess glanced between the two, wondering if there was any way to stop the obviously escalating argument. Deciding that it was inevitable, and the most she would actually be able to do was postpone it, she said nothing, and allowed the quarrel to continue.

"Of course not," Kyle sneered. "Why would I?"

"Well, you've made it incredibly clear what you thought of Jason…" Trudy began, but Kyle interrupted her with a dark chuckle.

"I've disliked Jason since long before he started showing an interest in you, Trudy. You have nothing to do with that," Kyle retorted.

Trudy flushed and looked away. "Well, then I don't see the problem," she remarked in an attempt to be casual.

"When you broke up with me, you told me you would wait. You told me to get over my thing with Liz, and you would still be waiting for me," Kyle snapped. "Do you remember that? At the movie theater? Why did you lie about that? Why did you tell me that you really liked me if you were going to move on to the next guy who asked you out?"

Trudy swallowed slowly. "That was before you started being a jerk," she replied. "Besides, this is a Homecoming dance, and I'm a sophomore. It's not like I'm marrying Jason."

"Fine," Kyle said. "You know what? It doesn't matter. I'm happy for you and Jason. Really, really happy." He turned and stalked into the classroom.

Trudy looked over at Tess, her expression flustered. She ran a hand through her hair as the blush slowly faded from her face. Tess gave her a sympathetic smile and the two walked into the classroom.

It was going to be an interesting Homecoming.

* * *

"Did you hear the rumors?" Alex asked as he approached Maria and Liz. "Trudy and Kyle were yelling at each other in the hallway because Trudy is going to the dance with Jason."

"This is so ridiculous. It's just a dance," Liz said, shaking her head. "There is no reason for people to yell at each other."

"Are you going with Max?" Alex asked. He took a seat at the lunch table next to Maria and glanced over at Liz.

Liz glanced over at him for a moment, then looked away and shrugged. Although she had tried to make ammends for her recent behaivor, she and Alex were still having trouble getting back to the level of friendship they had shared before. Talking to him felt slightly uncomfortable, and she didn't know how to balance her feelings for Max with her friendship with Alex. "I don't know," she replied at last. "I haven't spoken to him yet today."

Alex and Maria exchanged a glance, and Maria asked, "You aren't avoiding him, are you?"

Liz shook her head quickly. "Of course not. I just… I've seen him a lot in the past few weeks and I wanted to eat lunch with my friends. It's been a while since we've been together, just the three of us." She bit into her sandwich and chewed self-consciously, aware that both Alex and Maria were staring at her in disbelief.

At last Maria broke the tense silence, turning and looking over at Alex. "So, what are your plans for Homecoming?"

Alex shrugged. "I figured I'd just hang out with you guys. Tag along like a third wheel or something." He glanced quickly at Liz. "If Max doesn't mind, that is."

Liz paused and shook her head. "He won't," she replied, wondering even as she said the words whether or not they were true. Alex seemed to hear the insecurity in her voice, because he narrowed his eyes at her. She looked down at her sandwhich in frustration; it wasn't that she didn't want Alex to come, but it _was _a date. Assuming of course that she and Max went together.

"You're not going to ask Isabel?" Maria pressed, once again breaking a tense silence. She wasn't entirely sure what had happened between her two friends, and she worried vaguely that it would affect her friendship with them. She liked that Liz was spending time with her again, but if there was a problem with Liz and Alex, she didn't want to be caught in the middle.

Alex glared at her for a moment, then shook his head. "No, I'm not. We can barely be in the same room without getting flustered."

"Maybe that's just a sign that you two like each other," Liz pointed out. She and Maria exchanged a glance, and the two girls smirked.

Alex glanced back and forth between them. "Oh, God, are you trying to play matchmaker? Please tell me you're not trying to play matchmaker."

Maria laughed, and Liz shook her head. "Of course we aren't," the brunette replied with a wholly untrustworthy grin. "I'm just saying that you won't get anywhere if you don't take a chance with Isabel."

Alex frowned at his best friends, then decided to turn the tables. Switching his gaze to focus solely on Maria, he asked, "So, what about you and Michael? Are you going to ask him to Homecoming?"

Maria turned beet red and choked on her apple. Alex smirked, but Liz had glanced over Alex's shoulder, and her face had turned an odd combination of bright red and pale white in embarrassment. Maria and Alex turned to follow her gaze, and they fell into stunned silence.

Michael was standing right behind them.

"I don't do dances," he said simply.

"You don't do dances?" Maria repeated incredulously, her embarrassment being replaced by disbelief.

"They're stupid," Michael said simply. "Just a whole bunch of students gathering together in a big room to pretend like they are having a good time."

"That's because they _are_ having a good time," Maria shot back.

"Whatever," Michael said dismissively. "I don't do them."

"You don't have any school pride?" Maria demanded.

"No."

Maria stared at Michael for a moment, then shook her head. "But what if there was a girl that you wanted to go to the dance with?" she asked cautiously.

"I don't do school dances,' Michael repeated. "I don't do them, period."

Maria nodded slowly, her expression unreadable. Liz and Alex exchanged apprehensive looks, then Liz said, "Well, we think they are fun."

"Yeah," Alex agreed. "Speaking of which," he turned to Maria, "will you go to the Homecoming Dance with me? We can double with Liz and Max if they decide to go."

Maria and Liz were both staring at Alex in surprise, so they did not see the hardening of Michael's features or the way his hands clenched into fists. But Alex noted it, and smiled inwardly.

"I'd love to," Maria replied, smiling brightly. She glanced over at Michael, who gave her an indecipherable stare, then turned and stalked away.

* * *

"Liz," Max called out as he made his way through the crowded hallway to her side. "I've been looking for you."

Liz looked up at Max and smiled. "Sorry, I was hanging out with Maria and Alex," she replied.

Max nodded. "I know, you were worried about Maria and all." He took her by the elbow and led her away from the classroom door. Lowering his voice, he whispered, "We're meeting at the Crashdown after school. Can you join us?"

Liz rolled her eyes. "I work there, Max. I'll be there anyway," she pointed out.

Max nodded. "I know, but will you be able to get away from your shift long enough to talk to us?" he pressed.

Liz stared at him for a moment, realizing that whatever they found in Marathon must have been important. "I can try," she promised.

"Good," Max said, leaning down to kiss her.

She pulled back.

"Liz?" Max asked in confusion.

"What are you doing for Homecoming?" Liz asked quietly.

Max stared at her in surprise. "I thought we were going together," he replied. "I assumed because we were dating that…" He let the sentence trail off, his eyebrows coming together in perplexity.

"You assumed…?" Liz asked. "You can't assume, Max. You have to ask me if you want to go with me."

"Um… okay," Max replied, clearly having no idea where this was coming from.

Liz sighed. "Look, I just, we're just too… I've been neglecting my friends because we are always together, Max. We can't do that."

"You haven't been…"

"Yes, I have," Liz interrupted. "And you have also. When was the last time you, Michael, and Isabel hung out together?" Max didn't say anything, so Liz continued, "Probably around the last time I hung out with Maria and Alex. Which, excluding today at lunch, was a really long time ago."

Max nodded slowly, recognizing that she was right.

"I don't want to be defined as your girlfriend, and you probably don't want to be defined as my boyfriend," Liz added. She hesitated, then said, "And Maria is my best friend, so I should have gone with you to Marathon. That wasn't a decision that you should have gotten to make."

Max nodded again.

Liz was about to say something else when Isabel approached them. She smiled at Liz and then turned to Max and whispered, "Did Michael tell you about the thing with Mom?"

Max shook his head wordlessly.

"We might have a problem," Isabel murmured. "We need to talk about it later, okay?"

"Okay," Max said. He, Liz, and Isabel turned towards their last class of the day, then Max reached out and caught Liz's arm. She turned and looked at him expectantly, and he asked, "Will you go to Homecoming with me?"

Liz smiled. "I'd love to. Do you mind if we double date with Maria and Alex?"

Isabel stopped suddenly and turned to look at Liz. "Alex and Maria are going to the dance together?" she asked curiously.

"Yeah," Liz replied, studying Isabel's reaction. "Alex asked Maria today at lunch."

Isabel nodded and swallowed, then forced a smile and said, "Well, it sounds like you'll have a lot of fun." And she turned and walked into the classroom.

* * *

"Alright, page me if there is any change in his vitals and let me know when that CAT scan gets back," Dr. Drake said to the nurse as he stared down at the man lying on the bed. The nurse nodded, and Drake turned to leave the room.

Out in the hallway of the hospital, he paused and looked around for a moment. None of the doctors or nurses seemed to require his immediate attention, so he headed back towards his office. Upon reaching the room, he stepped inside and shut the door firmly behind him.

He walked over to a file cabinet on the far wall and pulled open the bottom drawer. He carefully extracted one file and stared at it for a moment. Then he opened it and flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for.

He walked over to his desk and reached for the phone. Lifting it from the receiver, he dialed a number and waited. A few rings later, and a male voice answered, "Nick Latcher, special correspondent for the Associated Press."

"Nick? It's Justin Drake. I need a favor."

"Hey, sure thing. Always ready to help out my favorite doctor," Nick replied jovially. "What can I do for you?"

"I need you to do some research on someone. And I need it done quietly," Drake explained.

"Who?" Nick asked, the humor gone from his voice.

"Michael Guerin," Drake replied. "G-u-e-r-i-n," he spelled out the last name. "He's sixteen, he attends Roswell High, and he lives with his foster father, Hank Guerin. That's about all I got on him, and I need more."

"What do you think he's in to? Drugs? Theft? Something worse?" Nick asked. If it seemed off to him that a doctor was investigating someone, he didn't say anything about it.

"I'm not sure," Drake replied. "That's the problem."

There was a silence from the other end of the line, then Nick said, "I'm Associated Press, Justin. That's Washington D.C. You think anything this kid did could have shown up here? He's just a high school student."

Drake hesitated, remembering Ms. Topolski's calm expression as she flashed her FBI badge at him. "Nick, the FBI's somehow in this."

Nick let out a low whistle. "Alright, I'll contact a few informants, see if I can dredge anything up. Got to warn you, though, if the FBI is on this, they may have things pretty well concealed."

"I know. But you're the best investigative journalist on AP. If there is something to be found, you'll find it," Drake replied confidently. Sometimes it paid to be friends with the elite.

"Well, I'll put out the feelers and see what I get. Call you if anything comes up?"

"Yeah, but remember to be discreet. I don't want this to get out until I know what it is I'm dealing with," Drake replied. He exchanged a few more pleasantries with the reporter, then hung up the phone and leaned back in his seat.

He didn't know what it was that made him this curious. He didn't know why he was so determined to find the truth. But whatever was going on, if the FBI was involved, it could affect him and the hospital. It could potentially harm them, and he wasn't going to let that happen.

He would just have to wait and see if Nick found out anything. If he didn't, then maybe the FBI was following a dead lead, and they would be gone soon enough. But if he did find something…

Well, Drake would cross that bridge when he got to it.

* * *

Next Chapter: Awakening

Due Date: Fri 6/16


	35. Awakening

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's Note: I haven't said this in a while, so I thought I would say it now, thanks to everyone who reviewed, I really appreciate it. This chapter briefly mentions child trafficking, so a warning about that. Also, I make a brief aside into organic chemistry, so a warning about that as well.

* * *

Chapter Thirty-Four: Awakening

Max slid into the seat next to Michael and Isabel and looked back and forth between his best friend and his sister. He could feel the tension in the air, and remembered that Isabel had mentioned that something had happened with Michael and their mother and they were going to have to discuss it. Raising an eyebrow at Michael's frosty demeanor, he asked slowly, "What's going on?"

"Mom wants Michael to talk to Child Protection Services," Isabel said simply, unable to meet Michael's eyes.

"Mom always wants that," Max replied carelessly, not understanding the problem. "Why is this a big deal now?"

Isabel slanted a look at Michael, but he just glared back at her silently, not offering her any help in her explanation. Running a hand through her hair and taking a shaky breath, she said, "Mom says that if Michael doesn't, she will." Her words came out in a rush, as though she hoped that saying them quickly would make them less true.

Max stared at his sister, stunned. Although he knew his parents were worried about Michael, he had never once imagined that his mother would give an ultimatum like that. "Why?" he demanded, switching his gaze to Michael. "What happened?"

"Nothing," Michael snapped back angrily. "Izzy just went and opened her mouth and now…"

"I had to tell her something," Isabel hissed, lowering her voice and looking around the diner. Deciding that no one was listening, she continued in a whisper, "If you hadn't gone on your crazy trip to Marathon, Max wouldn't have had to follow you, and I wouldn't have had to lie to my mother about what was going on. Don't blame this entirely on me!"

Liz chose that moment to walk over and see if the three wanted to order anything. However, seeing the anger evident on Michael and Isabel's faces and the worry lining Max's features, she hesitated and asked, "Should I come back later?"

"Yes."

"No."

Michael and Max answered at the same time. Michael glared at Max but shrugged as though to say he was backing down, and Max turned to Liz.

"This is fine," he said with a forced smile. "Can I have a Cherry Coke?"

"Alright," Liz wrote the order down on her pad. She glanced over at Michael and Isabel, but they both shook their heads, indicating they didn't want anything to drink. Liz nodded and left quickly, wondering what she had been interrupting.

Max watched her go, then turned back to Isabel. "So what did you tell Mom to make her give the ultimatum?"

"Just that Hank had been more drunk than usual and you were staying with Michael to make sure that he was okay. Only, um, that night Michael and Maria wanted to hang out because Michael was interested in Maria, so that's why he wasn't at Hank's and when Hank came looking for him he didn't know where…" She broke off abruptly, realizing she was babbling.

"Great, so now I not only have to move out of my house but I've got a thing for Maria also?" Michael spat. "Good to know." He rolled his eyes and looked away.

"Look, I was just trying to help…"

"I don't need your help!" Michael interrupted, his voice louder than he had intended. Several customers at the other tables turned and looked at the three, and Max shot Michael a warning look.

"Keep your voice down," he admonished.

"Whatever," Michael replied, but he lowered his voice in compliance with Max's request. Another awkward silence fell over the three, then Michael asked, "When does everyone else get here?"

"Tess isn't coming," Max replied with a sigh. She had avoided him all day, and he knew she was still displeased with them for creating so much trouble. And he knew it was probably for the best that she wasn't here, it would cause too many people to ask too many questions about why she suddenly decided to hang out with them. "And Liz said that Maria was going to stop by the hospital this afternoon, so she probably won't be here either."

"So its just the three of us, Alex, and Liz?" Isabel questioned.

At that moment, the door of the diner swung open, and Alex entered. He looked over at the three of them, then shot a look at Liz, who was standing near the back of the diner, taking orders from another group of patrons. She met his eyes for a moment, then swallowed and looked away from his unreadable stare.

Alex joined the others at the table, taking a seat across from Max and Isabel. A moment later Liz walked over and looked at them expectantly. "Well?" she prompted. "Don't keep us in suspense anymore."

Max nodded, gave one last precautionary glance to make sure no one was listening, and then began, "So we found Atherton's house on the outskirts of Marathon…"

* * *

Ms. Topolski frowned as she stared at the two agents in front of her. "Let me get this straight," she said coolly. "You followed them to a dome shaped structure in Texas, and then, once you were in this… house… you heard an explosion, went to investigate, were both somehow knocked unconscious, and woke up later to find that they were gone?"

The first agent swallowed. "Yes, ma'am," he replied.

Ms. Topolski frowned slightly and turned away from the two agents, looking down at the report in her hands. By the agents' own description the basement of the house looked as though someone had exploded a bomb in it. But no traces of explosives had been found in the air, on the walls of the basement, or in the dirt.

All the puzzle pieces were there, but they just didn't add up to anything.

Yet.

"There is one thing…"

Ms. Topolski glanced sharply over at the agent who had spoken. "Yes?"

The agent reached into his briefcase and extracted a sheet of paper. "We sent a fragment of the rock from the basement to our lab for radioactive and isotope analysis."

"And?" Ms. Topolski took the paper in her outstretched hand and glanced at the numbers on it. Everything was normal…except…

"What is that?" she asked in confusion, glancing up at the agents.

"We aren't sure," the agent replied. "Analysis showed it to be cadmium, but an previously unknown isotope. We've named is cadmium-X for lack of a better term."

"Is this… has this isotope ever been seen before?" Ms. Topolski asked.

"No," the agent replied grimly. "It is not naturally occurring, and as far as our sources and researchers can tell us, it has never been artificially created in a lab either."

"What do we know about the isotope?" Ms. Topolski asked.

"It has an atomic mass of 135, a total of 87 neutrons, and is relatively unstable," the agent replied.

"87 neutrons?"

"Yes," the agent nodded. "That's three more than the largest known isotope of cadmium," the agent said with a nod. "It's fairly unstable, decays over a short period of time. We don't know how it was created, it requires a lot of energy to add neutrons to an atom."

"Is it dangerous?" Ms. Topolski asked, her first thought the safety of the people in Marathon.

"The lab report is inconclusive," the second agent spoke up. "It reacted with several organic compounds, but it also decayed so rapidly that the reactions were not prolonged. I don't think we are looking at anything like Chernobyl, and the lab techs were fairly certain it wasn't explosive."

"Is it likely to form any mutagenic or carcinogenic compounds?" Ms. Topolski pressed.

"Possible," the first agent said with a nod. "That's probably the greatest danger, that it is some kind of mutagen. Again, it decayed too rapidly for us to do any experiments with it, so we weren't able to determine that. Based purely on its structure, electronegativity, and bonding abilities, I would say that it is probable the isotope could be used in some form of biological warfare."

Ms. Topolski tightened her grip on the paper. "Alright," she said at last. "You can go." The two men left, and Ms. Topolski stared down at the paper in silence. The stakes had been raised, and the evidence was all there, she just needed to find a way to put it together.

Perhaps it was time to pay a visit to Sheriff Valenti.

* * *

Dr. Drake's phone rang, abruptly cutting through his thoughts, and he put aside the journal article he was reading and reached for the receiver. Glancing at the caller ID, he realized who it was and his heartbeat picked up. "What have you got for me, Nick?"

"I'm still doing some searching, but I found something I wanted to pass along to you right away," the special correspondent for the Associated Press replied.

"And?" Drake prompted.

"Michael Guerin was found, as a child, wandering in the desert. He spoke no English, had no name, no memory, no clothes. And he was found a few days after Max and Isabel Evans, who were in the same condition, and in the desert as well," Nick said quickly.

"Wandering in the desert?" Drake asked, frowning. "How old was he?"

"Six," Drake replied promptly.

Drake let out a low whistle. "Do you think the FBI is looking into child slave or prostitution trafficking?" he asked.

"That was my first guess, so I tried that angle, but it came up blank," Nick replied. "I still have some feelers out there, and if those kids were ever part of anything like that, I'll be able to find at least a hint of it. But I actually found something else."

"What?"

"There was apparently a shooting in a diner in your little town. It was a while ago, maybe a month or two? I think the diner was called the Crashdown?" Nick asked.

"Sure," Drake replied. "It was a big deal because we rarely have violent crime. A waitress fell and knocked a bottle of ketchup over, and everyone thought she had been shot."

"Her name was Liz Parker. That ring any bells?" Nick asked curiously.

Drake shook his head. Liz Parker… She had been at the hospital once or twice since Amy DeLuca had been brought in. He thought she might be friends with Maria. "I know who she is, but what does she have to do with anything?"

"Possibly nothing, but the rumor around here is that the FBI went to Roswell shortly after the shooting. Possibly in relation to the shooting." Nick paused and took a breath. "The thing is, there is no written record of that."

"What do you mean?" Drake asked. Now he was really confused.

"The unit that is in Roswell right now, they are a black ops unit. They aren't on the books, they don't report to any higher authority, and their money isn't tracked. A couple senators from the ways and means committee have started asking questions about black ops units, so the public's interest level is raised a bit, but for all intents and purposes, the people who are there right now… that unit and those agents don't exist."

"If there is no record of them, how do you know all this?" Drake asked, surprised at the wealth of information his friend had turned up.

"I have a few inside sources that get me stories," Nick replied easily. "That's why I'm in investigative journalism."

"What do black ops units normally do?" Drake questioned. "I mean, what is their area of expertise?"

"Anything the FBI doesn't want to alert the public to, or have to justify. It ranges from overthrowing leaders of other countries to assassinations to drug and oil smuggling." Again, Nick paused, then said, "I've added Liz Parker and the shooting to the things I'm looking into for you, Justin. I'm still not sure how they fit together with the FBI or how Michael Guerin figures in to any of this, but I do know one thing. If the black ops have been called in, then _something_ is going on. Something dangerous. Be careful, alright?"

"You too," Drake answered as he hung up the phone. His confused thoughts swirled around in his brain. Agent Topolski and Michael Guerin, Any DeLuca's delirious rambling about green light, black ops units, shootings and Liz Parker, and children wandering in the desert.

What had he stumbled across?

* * *

Maria seated herself at the edge of her mother's bed and closed her eyes for a moment, unable to look at her mother's frail form. Wires and tubes snaked around the bed, attacked to various machines that did things Maria couldn't even begin to comprehend. The white sheets of the bed were pulled up tightly around Amy's chest and tucked in under the mattress. They were starched white, and Maria thought fleetingly that the place was unnaturally clean.

She took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and started to talk.

"I don't know what to do, Mom. I mean, I am in way over my head with Dad here and all this Czechoslovakian stuff, and the trip to Marathon only made it worse. And then with Michael… I feel something with him. Did you feel something with Dad? Or with Sheriff Valenti? Was there a connection there? Liz said she felt this immediate connection with Max, like she see directly into him. I don't have that with Michael because half the time I can't even stand him. But I still feel… I feel _something_. Even if I don't know what it is."

"_If you come in, you're an accessory to breaking and entering." _

"_I know." _

"_It might not be safe." _

"_I know."_

"I did really stupid stuff for him. I mean, I let him drive my car across state borders, I broke into a dead guy's house, I put myself in danger…" Maria leaned back in the chair. "He wouldn't even go to Homecoming. I mean, seriously, who doesn't go to Homecoming? It's not like there is anything else to do in Roswell." She clenched her fists on the edge of the chair and shook her head.

The clock above her moved slowly, each minute ticking away as she sat there in silence, trying to organize her confused thoughts.

"I know you always said that relationships weren't easy, that they took work," Maria murmured after a few minutes of silence. "I guess I'm feeling that more now… now that Dad is here and things between me and Liz were so… different. I mean, she is my best friend, but she didn't… she wasn't there. And now she wants to be there, and I want her to be there, but I still can't pretend that it didn't bother me when she wasn't there. You know?"

She glanced back through the window in the door to the hallway. The nurse had let her into the room and left her alone, and the hallway was empty. The nurses didn't stay long in the room anyway, and she had the vague feeling that they thought it was pointless of her to come in. It wasn't like her mother could hear her anyway.

But she didn't believe that. She couldn't believe that. That woman on the bed was still her mother, and she had to believe that behind the closed eyes there was a consciousness that was going to wake up sometime soon.

She reached out and took one of her mother's hands in her own. It was colder than usual, and her fingers were limp.

"God, Mom, tell me what to do. What do I do about all of this? I feel so lost without you. I can't do this by myself." Maria wiped a tear away. It was strange to think how little she had realized just how dependant she was on her mother. The woman drove her crazy half the time, but she couldn't imagine life without her.

She thought again of Michael. He had blatantly announced that he wouldn't go to Homecoming, even if a girl he liked wanted to go. But what if he just didn't like her? What if he didn't feel anything more for her than he did for Alex or Liz? Just one more person keeping his secret. After all, it wasn't like Michael was known for having strong emotions.

Except that now that she knew a little more about him, now that she had seen past the tough-guy exterior, past the guy who cut classes and started fights, she realized that there was more to Michael than anyone else except Max, Isabel, and Tess seemed to understand.

"_You never did answer that last question I asked you. Number fifteen, I think. What are you afraid of? You owe me." _

"_I'm afraid of never finding out who I am, of never belonging anywhere, of never answering any of my questions. Or worse, I'm afraid of having someone else find out all the answers first. I need those answers."_

"_Why?"_

"_Because there has to be something out there that's better than Roswell, New Mexico."_

"What do I do?" Maria wondered again, her voice echoing slightly in the room.

And then she stopped suddenly, her breath catching in her throat, her heartbeat jumping frantically in her chest.

Because her mother's fingers had just squeezed gently against her palm.

She turned to look at her mother's face, and saw to her shock and indescribable relief that her mother's open eyes were staring back at her.

"Mommy?"

* * *

Next Chapter: Father Figures

Due: Fri 6/23


	36. Father Figures

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Sorry for the delay, FFN wouldn't let me upload for the longest time.

I don't really know anything about Hank Guerin or what he did on the show besides the time he hit Michael. I gave him a bit of a background in this story, and a bit of an identity beyond just 'Michael's deadbeat foster-father.' If it conflicts with something that we learned on the show, I apologize, I didn't know.

* * *

Chapter Thirty-Five: Father Figures

He didn't even have to look at his foster father to know that Hank was in a bad mood. The moment he pushed the door open and stepped inside, he could feel it in the air. Drawing a breath, he stepped quickly into the room and shot an apprehensive look at Hank before making his way quickly towards his own room.

"Where you been, boy?" Hank growled.

Michael turned and looked at Hank. "At school," he replied simply.

"Where you been after school? Where were you yesterday when them guidance counselor came looking for you?" Hank demanded harshly. He wasn't drunk, but his temper wasn't entirely under control either.

Michael eyed him silently, as though weighing his options, before replying stiffly, "Out." He knew there was no reason to give specifics, Hank didn't actually care that much. He was probably only concerned about any inconvenience Michael might cause him.

And sure enough, "I don't want you takin' no attitude with me. Don't want no problems." Hank rubbed his hands on his pants, smearing grease and oil across the fabric, and Michael wondered if he had actually gone into work today. He held a number of odd jobs around town, one of which was working part time at a mechanic's shop. He rarely showed up for work, and his boss probably should have fired him along time ago, but hadn't. Michael wasn't really sure why, and didn't really care, but it was a surprise to see that his foster father had actually shown up for work.

And then it occurred to Michael that Hank might have been worried about Ms. Topolski's opinion. Since Hank didn't really know why Ms. Topolski was asking questions, he could have possibly thought that she was checking up on _him_, and not Michael. After all, Michael had missed school quite a bit before in the past, and this was the first authority figure who had ever bothered to come to his home and make sure he was alright.

Which lead Michael to questioned why Ms. Topolski had come at all. He didn't believe for one minute that she was actually worried about him. Especially since Tess had mentioned that she had been asking Trudy questions about the fourth alien. No, she was looking for something else entirely, and Michael paled suddenly as he wondered what exactly Hank had told Ms. Topolski when she came to visit.

"Did you hear me?" Hank asked angrily, and Michael jolted back to the present.

"Yeah, I heard," he sighed. "I'm not causing any trouble."

"Then why did the guidance lady come by?" Hank wanted to know.

Michael shrugged. "Don't know," he answered, and that was partially true. He turned to leave, but Hank's next words stopped him in his tracks.

"You need help gettin' out of some sort of trouble?"

Michael turned and stared at his foster father, silently racking his brain for any other time when his foster father had agreed to help him, let alone actually offer it. He opened his mouth to say something, and then realized he had nothing to say. He had no idea how to respond to that comment.

He shook his head and turned back towards his room. Hank was just offering to help because he was worried that Ms. Topolski would report him as a bad foster father. Or maybe he was just worried that whatever Michael was getting himself into, it would end up affecting him as well, and he wanted to prevent that. Michael nodded, convincing himself that one of those two was probably the case, and opened the door to his room, disappearing inside.

He collapsed into his bed, letting his mind run over the events of the past two days. The conversation with Liz, Alex, and Isabel had not yielded any answers, but at least everyone now knew what was going on. Alex had not seemed as interested in seeing the orb as Liz was, and Max had offered to take her back to his house so that she could look at it. Max currently had the orb in his room, along with the button that Michael had found in Deputy Hannigan's car.

Which then made Michael think of the shape-shifter that Isabel had seen. Was he still around? He hadn't made any moves, but it was possible that he was lurking in the shadows, biding his time. In all the commotion with Amy's accident, the discovery of Atherton's book, Michael's road trip across a few states and the orb, along with suspicions about Topolski and questions about the flashes Liz had seen, they had forgotten about the shape-shifter.

But Michael shook his head. That wasn't right, they hadn't forgotten. Michael was fairly certain that Max had purposely chosen not to deal with that, because he was hoping that if they did nothing to make themselves stand out, the shape-shifter would not realize that they weren't fully human.

Which wasn't a logical proposition, because it was rather likely that the shape-shifter knew exactly who they were and that was why he was here.

But if that was the case, why hadn't he stepped forward at all in the past couple weeks? If not to attack them, than at least too acknowledge his existence. What was he waiting for?

And that unanswered question worried Michael more than anything else.

And as usual, Max wanted to do nothing. Just act normal, and hope that everything resolved itself.

That wouldn't work.

However, although he did not want to admit it, Michael did agree that Max had a point about drawing unnecessary attention to themselves. There was just too much going on right now to take that risk.

Still, sitting around and doing nothing seemed like a bad idea…

Which brought his thoughts back to the orb. What was it? What did it mean? Why was it hidden? Who hid it? Did this mean there were other aliens on Earth? Were they enemies or friends?

And most importantly, what do the four of them do now?

Unbidden, Maria's face floated into his mind, and Michael sighed, changing his previous question.

What do the _seven_ of them do now?

* * *

"Sheriff Valenti? My name is Julia Topolski. I'm the guidance counselor at Roswell High School," Ms. Topolski said pleasantly as she took the seat in front of Valenti's desk.

Valenti looked up sharply. His eyes widened ever so slightly, and he asked in instant concern, "Is something wrong? Kyle? Tess?"

"No, no," Ms. Topolski said, waving her hand to signify that his concerns were baseless. "Your son and daughter are fine, Sheriff. I was actually here to ask you a few questions about Michael Guerin."

Valenti raised an eyebrow and leaned back in his seat. He studied the woman in front of him for a moment, before asking curiously, "What about him?"

"I am slightly concerned about his lack of attendance at school," Ms. Topolski explained. "I just wanted to see if you had any background information on him that might help me better understand him." She flashed a smile and folded her hands in her lap, trying her best to appear as though she was merely concerned for one of her students.

Valenti rubbed the back of his head with one hand as he carefully considered his choice of words. "I don't know anything specific about Michael Guerin that I would be able to release without his permission or the permission of his legal guardian."

"Perhaps your general impression, then?" Ms. Topolski questioned. "I'm certainly not asking you to release confidential information to me, but I am concerned. I understand that Michael has not had a great home life, and I was wondering if it showed up at all in his behavior towards… legal issues."

"He hasn't committed any felonies, if that is what you're thinking," Valenti replied. "Far as I know, he's stayed out of _big_ trouble. Certainly nothing to get him mentioned to me." There was something off about that statement, as though for some reason he was interested in Michael, but he just couldn't explain it. Then the feeling passed, and he wondered vaguely whether or not he had imagined it in the first place.

"You said nothing big?" Ms. Topolski pressed. "What about small things?"

"Fights at school, truancy, talking back to teachers," Valenti explained. "Little things that don't get him sent to the Sheriff's office, but still I hear about them." He paused for a moment, then asked cautiously, "You know about Hank Guerin?"

Ms. Topolski nodded grimly. "Yes, I spoke to him yesterday. Unfortunately, he was not… forthcoming… in the conversation." She gave a wry smile and said, "Although that might have been because he was too drunk."

Valenti nodded. "There's never been any real domestic disturbance there, and every time anyone from social services asks him about, Michael says its going fine." His tone left little doubt that he was fairly certain the boy was lying, but there was really nothing he could do about it.

"Does this concern you?" Ms. Topolski asked.

Valenti sighed. "Yes and no. Like I said, he's never shown up at the hospital with signs of physical abuse, so its hard to know what exactly is going on. I don't think Hank is that bad of a foster father, he's just certainly not a good one." He narrowed his eyes for a moment, then said, "I've seen some pretty bad fathers and husbands in the past. People who hit their children and wives, starve them, emotionally torment them. Hank's not doing any of that."

Ms. Topolski nodded and pressed her lips into a thin line. "You seem to know a lot about his situation," she said thoughtfully. "Do you follow all the foster kids this closely?"

Valenti gave a chuckle. "We don't have many in Roswell," he replied by way of an answer. Then he shook his head and said seriously, "Child Protection Services keeps an eye on him some, but I also feel that it is my job, as the Sheriff of this town, to keep an eye on him, and anyone else who might be or get into trouble, as well."

Ms. Topolski nodded as she accepted all the information the Sheriff had given her. It was not exactly what she wanted, and she knew she would have been able to demand Michael's files, and all the 'specifics' she wanted, if she had shown her FBI badge. But that would put the Sheriff on alert, and Ms. Topolski didn't want to do that. Better not risk having anyone suspect her yet. Besides, who knew whether or not he would mention her being an agent to anyone? She couldn't risk that getting back to any of the suspects, and Roswell was a small enough town that a little gossip would go a long way. With Drake, she had been fairly certain that he wouldn't tell anyone, partially because he was a doctor and understood privacy laws, and partially because he wasn't connected to this extraterrestrial web in any way that she knew of. But Valenti was, through Tess and his relationship with Amy DeLuca, and that was of concern.

No, she decided at last, better not to reveal anything yet.

"Thank you for your time, Sheriff Valenti. You have been very helpful," she said, standing. She shook hands with the Sheriff and left the room, still deep in thought. The more details she got, the more detailed her picture of Michael's background became, and the less she liked it. He may have supernatural powers, he may be a threat to society, but he was also a victim as well, and it made it difficult to regard him objectively.

She thought back to what Valenti had said about Hank not being such a bad foster father, and wondered if that was true. Michael may have simply been good at hiding what went on within the walls of his home, and really, who would look so closely? It might be a small town, but her experience was that even small towns had their skeletons.

Roswell more so than some.

In the room behind her, Valenti stared at the closed door and felt the same strange feeling grow within him. For some reason, something was telling him that he had been looking into Michael's past before, that he had been interested in the boy, but he just couldn't remember why.

He pushed the thought away and turned back to his work, but the feeling remained, the questions continuing to linger in his subconscious.

* * *

"Maria…" The words were so faint that Maria had to bend over her mother's form to here them. Something inside her did somersaults at the sound of her name, however. Her mother was awake, and, miraculously, also knew who she was. It had been a concern on the part of Dr. Drake and the nurses, whether or not Amy had sustained any serious brain damage.

"You're awake," Maria breathed, and then realized how stupid of a comment that was. Of course Amy knew she was awake, she didn't need anyone to point it out to her.

Amy gave a slight chuckle and murmured, "Yeah… what happened?"

Maria bit her lip, wondering what to say to that, when the door behind her swung open and Drake hurried into the room, a wide smile on his face.

"Ms. DeLuca, you are awake," he said, unknowingly repeating Maria's earlier comment.

"So I hear," Amy quipped.

Drake's smile grew at that. "My name is Justin Drake, and I am the doctor who has been taking care of you," he introduced himself.

"Oh… nice to meet you," Amy murmured quietly.

"Ms. DeLuca," Drake addressed Maria briefly, "I need to examine your mother now that she is awake. Do you mind waiting outside?"

"But…" Maria didn't want to leave the room, not now that her mother was finally conscious.

As though sensing her daughter's thoughts, Amy whispered, "I don't mind… if she… stays." Her words were halting, which seemed to concern Drake for a moment, but then he gave another smile and a nod.

"Alright," he agreed. Leaning over Amy, he asked, "Can you tell me your name?"

"Amy DeLuca," Amy replied.

"Good, good. And do you remember what happened?" Drake asked as he carefully shined a light into one of her eyes and watched as her pupil shrunk. He switched the light to the other eye, and waited for Amy to answer.

"Car ac-accident," Amy said, again stumbling over the words. "A truck, and then flames and… I don't remember after that."

Drake nodded and replied, "That's all I would expect you to remember, you were knocked unconscious fairly quickly. I'm going to check your nerves now, alright? Tell me if you can feel this." He pressed his hand on her shoulder, and she nodded. Moving his hand to her stomach, and then to her hips, and down her legs. She nodded each time he pressed down, and he smiled.

"Well, it would appear that you do not have any nerve damage. And you aren't paralyzed, although you may to go through some physical therapy because of some damage to your muscles," Drake said, pleased. "All in all, Ms. DeLuca, this is very good news."

Amy managed a smile, and turned to look at Maria, who was grinning at her in evident relief.

"Oh, thank God," Maria breathed.

"I would like to run a CT Scan soon, and do a few other tests," Drake continued, "but I am confident that you will not have any permanent injuries. The road to recovery will take some time, and you may be in the hospital for a while, but the outlook is very good." He gave Amy a sincere smile. "You are very lucky, Ms. DeLuca."

"Thank you," Amy replied. "For everything."

Drake gave her a brief nod. "Of course," he rejoined. "Now, I have to take care of a few details before ordering your tests, and I have no doubt that you would like to spend some time along with your daughter, so I will be back in fifteen or twenty minutes. There is a nurse outside, and if you need me, you can have her page me. Do you have any questions before I leave?"

Amy shook her head. "No, I don't."

"Well, if you think up any, I will be more than happy to help you," he said before turning and leaving the room.

"How long…?" Amy asked, turning her head slightly to look at Maria now that Drake was gone.

Maria swallowed. "A little while," she said, not wanting to answer the question. But Amy raised one eyebrow, giving her daughter a look that demanded more specifics, and Maria elaborated hesitantly, "A week."

"Oh, sweetheart," Amy breathed, realizing suddenly that her daughter had been alone for that week.

"I was so scared, Mom," Maria whispered, blinking back the tears that started to form. She drew a shaky breath and continued, "We didn't know if you were going to be okay… and I was so…"

Amy didn't say anything for a moment, trying to comprehend what she had just discovered. The accident seemed like yesterday, had it really been a full week? She had missed an entire week?

"Where you by yo-yourself?" Amy asked finally.

Maria hesitated, unsure whether or not to tell her mother that Sean was here. "No…" she admitted reluctantly. "I… well, the thing is… you see…"

Amy closed her eyes. She didn't need Maria to finish the sentence to know what her daughter was trying to say. Right before she had blacked out, her thoughts had gone to Maria, and what would happen to her daughter if she died. And the last thing she could remember thinking was that, since she hadn't divorced Sean, Maria would probably be sent to him.

And since she hadn't divorced Sean, since he was her next closest of kin, and since Maria was a minor, he would have been called when she ended up in the hospital.

"Your father is here, isn't he?" Amy asked, opening her eyes.

Maria's eyes widened slightly as a surprised expression flickered onto her face, and then she nodded. "Yes," she said simply. "He is."

"So… you know about the divorce?" Amy asked.

"You mean that it never happened?" Maria questioned, and Amy nodded slowly. Maria bit her lip for a moment, then said, "It's not important right now, Mom. You're awake, and that is what matters. We can talk about this later."

"Sean hasn't tol-d you an-ything about us?" Amy asked, her words breaking again.

Maria frowned at her mother's speech problem, but, like Drake, did not comment on it. "No, he didn't," she answered. "I… haven't really talked to him that much," she admitted slowly.

Amy nodded, then winced as the movement caused pain to run through her neck. Making a mental note not to do that again, she said, "We can talk about it whenever you want." She had hidden this truth from Maria for years, convincing herself that it didn't matter. And it really didn't. At least, it wouldn't have if she hadn't been in the car accident. It would have never affected Maria, but fate had a funny way of stepping in and changing things.

"Later," Maria said firmly. "We can talk about it later." She wanted the answers. She wanted to know them so desperately. She had grown up without a father, and she wanted to know why. Why had he left? Why had Amy let him leave, but still stayed in touch with him? Why hadn't they been divorced? Why?

But those questions could wait, and they would have to, because Maria didn't want to think about them right now.

Her mother was awake, and that was all that mattered.

* * *

Next Chapter: The Tangled Webs We Weave

Due: Sun 7/2


	37. The Tangled Webs We Weave

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: So it seems that I am falling behind on my updating. I'm in the middle of classes (yes, I am taking class during the summer) and it isn't leaving me too much time to write. So this next chapter is probably going to be it for the next three weeks or so. Hopefully my next update will be early August, and at that point I should be able to handle the chapter-a-week schedule.

* * *

Chapter Thirty-Six: The Tangled Webs We Weave

Liz watched silently as Max paced back and forth across the floor of his room. She was sitting on his bed, her knees drawn into her chest, her eyes following his every step. The air was filled with a charged silence, a silence so loud Liz could barely hear herself think. She knew was Max was thinking, knew his thoughts were with the orb. She wished she could help him, wished she could send him on right track, point him towards the answers.

Max, for his part, was nervous and excited and frustrated and scared, all wrapped into one jumbled mess of emotion. He knew the orb was important, knew that they were close to finding out something about their past, about who they were and where they came from. And that excited him, filled him with a fierce apprehension. And yet, even though the clue was so close, it was still so far away because he didn't know what the orb meant, and it frustrated him to no end. And even if they did find an answer, a little voice in the back of his head kept asking him over and over whether or not they would find an answer they liked. What if they didn't? What if, once they found the truth, it was not want they wanted to hear?

Wasn't it enough that they had a home here on Earth? What did it matter where they lived before?

Max sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Turning to Liz, he gave her a small smile and apologized, "You're probably bored, aren't you?"

"No," Liz said swiftly. She tried to give him a reassuring smile, but he wasn't looking at her anymore, instead his eyes were strained on the orb sitting next to her on the bed.

They needed a place to hide it. Max's room had seemed the safest, but with the knowledge that the FBI was definitely investigating them, now they weren't so sure. Where could they put it where it would be safe from prying eyes?

Liz reached her hand out to touch it, her fingertips trailing the smooth surface. It was cold and hard, like polished steel. To her, it looked and felt like a simple sphere, a metal ball someone might use as a paper weight.

To Max, it hummed. It throbbed as though pulsating some strange form of faint energy that he could only feel if he was close enough.

Liz let her fingers drop from the orb and glanced up at Max again. "What do we do now?" she asked curiously.

Max shook his head. "Nothing," he said simply. "We keep our eyes and ears open, and try to pretend like nothing happened."

"Are you sure hiding in plain sight is going to work?" Liz questioned, somewhat skeptical.

Max shook his head. "I don't know," he answered honestly. "It worked in the past, but given everything that's happened…" He let out a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. "I just don't know what else to do."

Liz opened her mouth to say something, but her phone rang abruptly, and she reached over to her purse to grab it. Sorting through the contents of the bag, she pulled out the small cell phone, saw that it was Maria's number, and answered cheerfully, "Hey. What's up?" Max watched in concern as the color drained from Liz's face, as her eyes widened in astonishment. "Wh-what?" she managed to gasp out. She listened for a few more moments, then said, "I'll be there in a few minutes, 'kay?" And she hung up.

"Everything alright?" Max asked worriedly.

Liz gave him a brilliant grin and a quick nod. "Better than okay," she said enthusiastically. "Amy's awake." And she swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up, shoving her phone into her purse and heading to the door. Max followed her, pausing long enough to push the orb under his bed, praying it would be safe until they had a better place to keep it.

* * *

The knock on his window caused Michael to look up in surprise. He crossed over to the dirty glass and pulled and frowned as he saw Isabel standing there, staring at him. Yanking the window open, he asked sharply, "Ever here of doors?" 

Isabel gave him a hesitant smile and said, "You use our windows all the time." Michael just glowered at her and her smile faltered. "Look, Michael, I'm sorry, ok? I just… I never wanted to put you in this position."

"What position?" Michael snapped. "The position of having your mother think I'm dating someone who is going to Homecoming with another guy? Or the position of possibly being forced to leave Roswell?"

Isabel took another step towards the window, leaning against the frame and staring through the gap at her friend. "Michael…"

"Did you even think about how this would affect me before you said anything?" Michael ground out.

Isabel's temper flared. "Did you think about how your road trip would affect us before you took off?" Her tawny eyes blazed with anger. "You just left, and I had to clean up all the loose ends you hadn't bothered to think about. This isn't _my_ fault."

Michael bristled at the accusation. "You couldn't have just made up a different story to tell your mother?" he asked angrily, although his voice was slightly softer, as though recognizing the truth in Isabel's words.

"I tried," Isabel replied wearily. "I really tried…" She shook her head slowly and looked down at the ground, partially frustrated, partially guilty. "You're going to have to say something to Child Protection…"

"Don't," Michael cut her off with a sharp retort and another glare. "Don't even say that. I'm not telling them anything."

"Then my mother will," Isabel argued.

Michael shrugged. "Figure out a way to make her stop interfering," he ordered coolly, as though it was the obvious answer.

Isabel rolled her pretty eyes and replied, "Well, don't you think I've tried to figure out how to do that?" She met his gaze for a moment, then continued, "My Mom won't budge on the issue, Michael. She thinks you're in danger…" Isabel held his gaze for a beat, and they both knew she didn't have to finish the sentence, because Michael understood the silent implication.

_And I think so also._

"I can take care of myself," Michael said simply.

"But you shouldn't have to," Isabel objected.

Michael gave a dark laugh. "If I talk to Child Protection Services, they'll ship me off to some other city, where I'll be by myself, dealing with all this alien stuff _by myself_." He gave her a sardonic smile. "Either way, I'm taking care of myself."

Isabel didn't say anything, and the anger and frustration crackled in the air between the two. The silence was long and tense, so tense Isabel couldn't even hear herself think. Finally, she said softly, her voice choked, "I don't want you to be mad at me."

Michael remained silent for a moment, just studying her, while she looked back at him hopefully, waiting for him to reassure her. As the silence wore on, her face fell, and she turned to leave.

"You want to go to Homecoming with me?"

Isabel turned around and stared at Michael in complete and utter shock. "Wh-what?" she asked, not entirely sure she had heard his question correctly.

Michael gave an uncomfortable shrug. "Well, Max and Liz are going, and Maria and Alex are going…" his voice stuttered slightly as he said Maria's name, "…and I thought it would be…" He didn't finish the sentence.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew agreeing to go was a bad idea. She knew it would probably backfire. She knew it would only end up making things worse, and causing problems for the group. But…

"Um… sure," Isabel replied quietly, thinking. She knew the real reason Michael was asking her to go, and she knew that he knew the real reason she was agreeing.

Maria and Alex.

But it remained unspoken between them, each pretending that they actually wanted to go with the other, and it was not simply a case of trying to make someone else jealous.

Then Isabel smiled, a genuine smile that lit up her face. Michael might be mad at her, but at least she knew that he was still speaking to her. He couldn't be that mad at her, right?

"About the… um… Child Protection Services…" Michael glared, at Isabel's voice faltered, but then she pushed on, "I'll see if I can talk to Mom, but…"

But it wouldn't be enough, they both knew that. When Mrs. Evans set her mind to something, she rarely changed it.

Michael kept his face unreadable as he gave her a short nod. "Do that," he said, and she swallowed and nodded, turning away.

* * *

"You asked _Pam Troy_ to Homecoming?" 

Kyle glanced over at his incredulous sister and gave her a brief nod. "Yes," he said simply. "I did." Then he turned his attention back to his homework.

Tess stared at him in complete disbelief. Kyle and Pam Troy? She looked down at her own homework, then back at her brother, then shook her head in frustration. She knew perfectly well that Trudy's opinion of Pam was no higher than Kyle's opinion of Jason, and that was the sole reason that Kyle would have invited her to the dance.

Kyle was smirking as he did his work, and Tess said nothing as she played with her pencil. Kyle was her brother, but Trudy was one of her best friends, and she had no idea where her loyalties were supposed to lie.

"So… you're coming with us before the dance?" Tess asked. Kyle nodded, and the blonde closed her eyes, wondering vaguely whether or not they would make it through that night without any bloodshed.

The front door swung open, and Jim walked into the house. He gave both teenagers a brief smile, but his mind was clearly elsewhere.

"Hey, Dad."

"Hi, Jim."

Tess eyed him for a moment, curious. He was obviously preoccupied with something else, but it didn't interest her that much, so she dismissed it. Then her eyes traveled down from the Sheriff's distracted expression to the files in his hands, to the name printed across the top of the file, and her blood turned to ice.

_Michael Guerin._

Kyle had apparently noticed the file as well, because he frowned and asked, "Why are you carrying a file about Guerin's around?"

Jim glanced down at the manila file folder, then up at his son, and shrugged. "Just some stuff for work," he replied in a would-be casual tone.

Kyle seemed to believe the statement, or, at least, had very little interest in any of it, and turned back to his work. Tess glanced down at her work as well, but a thousand questions ran through her mind.

Why Michael? Why now? Did something happen? Did Jim know about the road trip? Did Michael do anything stupid enough to get himself in to trouble today? Or was this all some big coincidence, and meant nothing?

Tess shook her head slightly, dismissing that last thought.

She didn't believe in coincidences.

Jim walked past them into the kitchen, and commented over his shoulder, "I met your guidance counselor today. Ms. Topolski. She seems nice."

Kyle made no comment, but Tess glanced up briefly, before averting her eyes and trying to calm her frantically beating heart.

She stood up and walked towards her bedroom, stepping inside and closing the door firmly behind her. She grabbed her cell phone from the desk and dialed a number, listening to the rings. When the voice picked up at the other end of the line, she didn't even wait long enough for him to finish his greeting before she had started speaking.

"Max, we might have a problem."

* * *

Maria poked her head back into her mother's hospital room and gave Amy a weak smile. Amy shifted slightly on the bed so that she could get a better view of her daughter. The doctors had been in only moments before to run some tests, and Amy was slowly starting to fade back into the sleep, the events of the day having drained her of what little energy she had. 

"I just called Liz," Maria said. "She's coming over." She took a seat next to her mother and reached out to take Amy's hand. "Max might be also," she continued, "because I think Liz was with him when I called."

Amy frowned. "Max Evans?" she asked, and Maria blinked, remembering with surprise that her mother had no idea how serious that relationship had gotten.

"Um, yeah…" Maria frowned, shifting uncomfortably as she nodded, not wanting to delve into the issue. "And I called and left a message for Alex." She bit her lip, cast a side long look at her mother, and murmured, "And Dad."

Amy closed her eyes briefly, as though resigning herself to some sort of fate. When she opened her eyes again, Maria was staring at her questioningly, and Amy said, "Maria, things between your father and I… well, they aren't what you think."

"I know," Maria replied honestly. "Sheriff Valenti told me that you didn't get divorced."

Amy smiled sadly and switched the subject, "How is Jim?"

Maria ran a hand through her hair and thought about the question. "Alright, I guess. He was really upset when you got hurt." She smiled faintly, laughter appearing in her eyes, "and Tess and Kyle were shocked to find out you two were dating."

Amy gave a weak chuckle. She knew perfectly well how social cliques and popularity worked in a small town like Roswell, and Tess and Kyle were probably not thrilled to be tied so closely to Maria. Anger bubbled in her stomach for a moment, Maria was a perfectly nice girl and Tess and Kyle should be _happy_ to have her as a maybe-one-day sister.

If things with Jim ever got that far.

But Amy dismissed the thought. Maria was happy with her friends, and probably was just as displeased as Tess and Kyle to be linked to them in this way.

"So what have you been doing since I was in the accident?" Amy asked.

Discovering the existence of aliens, traveling across state lines to break into a dead man's house, nearly getting into trouble with the FBI…

"Not much," Maria said with a shrug. "Just school work and hanging out with Liz and Alex."

Amy opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by the sound of a knock on the door. She and Maria both turned in time to see the door slide slowly forward, and a man step into the room.

Amy felt as though the air was suddenly knocked out of her chest, and her vision blurred briefly. Quickly getting a handle on her shock and tumultuous emotions, she said impassively, "Hello, Sean."

Maria stood up. "I'm going to go outside and see if Liz or Alex are here yet," she said. "I'll be back in a few minutes." She quickly excused herself from the room, closing the door softly behind her, and finally pausing to take a few deep breaths.

"Are you alright?" a concerned voice asked, and Maria turned to see Alex standing there. She hurried over to him and hugged him quickly, her body shaking.

"My Dad just went in there," she said simply, gesturing back towards the room. Alex gave her a sympathetic smile and lead her over to the benches outside her mother's hospital room. The two sat down, and Maria bit her lip anxiously, continuing to send nervous glances back towards the closed door.

"It's going to be alright," Alex reassured her. "Your mother is awake, and she is going to be alright, and that is what matters."

Maria nodded, giving him a grateful look. "You're right," she said firmly, pushing away her other concerns. Having Sean back in her life would definitely mean that some things would change around, but it didn't matter. Her mother was going to live, and every other issue was secondary to that.

"Maria?"

Maria and Alex turned to see Liz and Max hurrying towards them. Liz ran straight to her friend and hugged her tightly, relief flooding her features at the smile on Maria's face.

"She's awake?" Liz asked. "This is great. Oh, I am so happy for you," she babbled, taking the seat next to Maria.

"Me, too," Max said with a nod.

Maria glanced around at all her friends and couldn't help the large grin that was spreading across her face. The truth was slowly sinking in, her mother was going to be fine, and her entire body was simultaneously going weak and giddy with relief.

The sound of a cell phone ringing caused Max to pull his phone out of his coat and look at the caller ID. Frowning, he said, "It's Tess."

"Tell her to tell the Sheriff that my mother is awake," Maria instructed.

Max nodded, and moved away to answer his phone.

Liz glanced over at Max for a moment, watching his expression as he spoke. She could tell by the worry in his eyes and the way he continually ran a hand through his hair, that something was wrong. She hoped it was nothing big, but if Tess was calling them…

Turning back to Maria, Liz asked, "Why are you out here? I thought you'd be in with your Mom?"

Maria frowned and explained, "My father is in their right now."

"Oh…" Liz folded her hands in her lap and stared at the floor. She had intended to meet Sean when he first arrived, but with everything that had come up, she had not had the chance to do so. She found she was suddenly nervous, not because she didn't want to meet Sean, but she was worried that when she did meet him, he would ask her what kind of friend would wait so long before going to meet her best friend's long lost parent? She should have been there for Maria more, especially since her mother was in the hospital.

Maria stood up abruptly, jolting Liz from her thoughts, and said, "I'm going to see if my Mom and Dad can be interrupted. I think my Mom would like to see you guys." Liz and Alex nodded, and Maria walked away.

And awkward silence fell over Liz and Alex as the two friends stared at each other, unsure of what to say. Liz could only meet Alex's eyes for a moment, before she looked away in embarrassment and frustration.

Finally, Liz said diffidently, "I didn't want to ruin our friendship."

Alex gave her a searching look, then replied, "You didn't ruin it, Liz. It's just… it's just going to take a while."

"Why?" Liz demanded suddenly. "It didn't with Maria. She and I are right back to being best friends without any problems. I know that I ignored her and you, but I apologized, and I made an effort to change it, and Maria forgave me. It's only with you where we sit in silence forever because we can't think of what to say."

Alex rubbed the back of his head absently as he thought about this, then said, "I don't know, Liz. I guess things are just… different between you and I. I mean, I'm not Maria, I don't… _we_ don't have the same…" Unable to finish the sentence, he lapsed into silence.

It was Liz's turn to give him a searching stare, and she found, in a sudden burst of clarity, that she knew why things were different. Maria angered easily, but she forgave just as quickly. It was different with Alex. In all the years that they had been friends, she could remember only a very few occasions where he had actually raised his voice, shouted, or been mad. It took a lot to get him angry.

But once he was angry, it took a lot to get him to forgive.

"Okay," Liz said at last. "I guess I can wait a while then."

Alex looked as though he was about to say something, but Max walked over to them at that point, worry etched into his face.

"We might have a problem," he said grimly.

* * *

Tess hung up the phone and sunk onto her bed. Part of her was relieved that Amy DeLuca was alright, part of her was terrified about what Jim might find if he continued looking into Michael's past. She had thought that they had managed to avoid that particular hurdle, that she had successfully mind-warped her father into not caring about the investigation. But as she had pointed out to the others, even the smallest thing could cause someone to break out of a mind-warp. 

And something had obviously triggered a relapse in the Sheriff.

Was it Ms. Topolski's visit? That seemed the most likely.

Which meant that the guidance counselor was turning into a real threat.

But why? Was she just a nosy counselor trying to look out for her students, or was she something else, something worse?

"Tess? Dinner," Kyle's voice floated to her through the closed door.

She sighed and stood up, dropping the cell phone onto the bed and walking out into the hallway. She paused for a moment in the doorway to the living room, then took a slow breath and closed her eyes, willing herself to think straight. After a moment, she opened her eyes and walked into the kitchen.

"Maria DeLuca just called," Tess said, entering the room and taking a seat across from Kyle. She was relieved to see that they had ordered takeout, she did not want to subject herself to Kyle or Jim's cooking. "Amy's awake."

Kyle and Jim looked at her sharply. "What?" Jim demanded, scarcely daring to believe what Tess said was true.

"I didn't hear the phone ring," Kyle said in confusion.

Tess ignored Kyle's comment and said to Jim, "Maria's over there right now, with Liz, Max Evans, and Alex Whitman. And… her father."

Jim nodded, his eyes narrowing slightly at the last of Tess' words. Although he had never said anything to either of his children about Maria's father, they both knew he was not pleased that the man had shown up now. What problems would his presence create?

Tess stared down at her own plate, wondering how much of a risk she could take at the moment. She desperately wanted to know, _needed_ to know, why Ms. Topolski had gone to see Jim, but asking too many questions might just make the situation worse.

Still…

She had to risk it.

Silently praying that she knew what she was doing, Tess asked casually, "Why'd Ms. Topolski come to see you?" She shot a sidelong smirk at Kyle. "We aren't in trouble, are we?"

Jim, still preoccupied with the news that his girlfriend was awake, answered distractedly, "No, she was just asking general questions about some things."

It wasn't enough of an answer for Tess, so she took another chance. "About Michael Guerin?"

Jim and Kyle both looked at her in surprise, and Kyle asked, "Why are you so interested in that? If we aren't in trouble, I say drop the subject before Dad gets suspicious and starts to wonder why we're worried about being in trouble."

Tess blinked for a moment, then shrugged and said, "She asked me some questions a while ago about my…um, _home life_." Tess rolled her sapphire eyes. "Apparently she likes to keep an eye on all of her students from… I think she called it 'a rough past.'" She rolled her eyes again.

Jim didn't say anything for a moment, and Tess had the sudden thought that things would be so much easier if she could read minds.

"I'd hardly put you in the same category as Guerin," Kyle objected as he took a drink of orange juice and dished some rice onto his plate.

"Yeah, me neither," Tess murmured. "But she might." She glanced at Jim out of the corner of her eye, then lapsed into silence. She didn't want to ask too many other questions, didn't want to get Jim suspicious. The less things to link her to the others, the better, especially if Jim really was reopening the investigation.

She prayed he wasn't. She prayed that this was just some detour, and that he would drop it all soon enough. She prayed the mind-warp will hold, that Ms. Topolski's questions wouldn't cause Jim to start asking questions of his own.

She prayed that her family wouldn't become her enemy yet again.

But she had never believed in God, and even as she prayed, she knew the prayers weren't going to be answered.

* * *

Maria pushed the door of her mother's hospital room partially open, but paused at the sound of her mother's voice. Neither of her parents had noticed her yet, and, although under normal circumstance she would balk at the idea of eavesdropping, she wanted to know what her mother and father had to talk about. So she held her breath, and listened. 

"…wasn't my place," Sean was saying.

"What do you mean?" Amy's voice replied.

"Well, you were in the hospital, and I didn't want to tell Maria the full story until you were awake to answer any questions that she might have for you. Besides, I wanted to see how you wanted to present the issue to her."

"You're much more considerate than I remember you being, Sean."

There was a pause, then Sean said, "Thank you."

"Should we tell Maria together?"

"No, I think it would be better if you told her. She is more likely to want to hear it from you since I am, for all intents and purposes, and complete stranger."

"Are you sure you aren't just saying that because you don't want to talk to her about this?"

"You know me better than that, Amy."

"I thought I did."

Again, there was a silence.

"I don't know how to tell her, Sean. I don't know what to say."

"Start at the beginning and tell her the truth until you reach the end."

"If only it were that easy. She thinks you got me pregnant and skipped town. How do I tell her that that isn't true? How do I tell her that she isn't your daughter?"

* * *

Author's note: Sorry to leave you with this cliffhanger, I know it isn't that nice of me. But I really don't have time to write any more right now. Hopefully I will see you all again in three weeks or so. 


	38. Crossing the Line

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Well, I have to say, I was pleased that no one seemed to see the end with Maria not actually being Sean's daughter coming. It's going to take a bit for the entire story about Sean and Amy to get unraveled, but I will tell you now that Jim is not Maria's father, and the truth about what happened is not in any way alien related.

* * *

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Crossing the Line

Previously:

"_I don't know how to tell her, Sean. I don't know what to say."_

"_Start at the beginning and tell her the truth until you reach the end."_

"_If only it were that easy. She thinks you got me pregnant and skipped town. How do I tell her that that isn't true? How do I tell her that she isn't your daughter?"

* * *

_

"_Mommy?" eight-year-old Maria climbed onto the sofa next to her mother and tucked her knees into her chest, staring up at her mother with wide eyes._

_Amy glanced down at her daughter and replied, "Yes?"_

"_We made cards today," the young girl said, twirling a strand of blonde hair around in her fingers. "In school, 'cuz Mrs. Thom'son said it was Daddy's Day. And everyone was makin' these pretty cards, and I didn't… 'cuz I don't have one. And Pam was makin' fun of me for it 'cuz she said my Daddy don't love me."_

_Amy nodded slowly, her heart breaking as she looked at the tear-filled eyes. She knew Maria wouldn't actually cry, she was trying to be brave and act strong. Amy swallowed the lump in her throat and pulled her daughter into a hug. There really wasn't anything she could say that would both comfort her daughter and be true, so she opted for a lie._

"_You're father loves you very much."_

"_Then where is he?" Maria asked. She was only eight, but she had a vague idea that if her Daddy really loved her, he would be there with her. "Everyone else's Daddy lives with them."_

"_Some families are different," Amy said. She placed her hand under Maria's chin and lifted her face gently. Looking straight into Maria's eyes, she said firmly, "Your Daddy loves you very much."_

Maria sat on the curb of the street, staring up at the night sky. Far above her, the stars twinkled, and as she watched them, she remembered vaguely that Alex had once told her that many of the stars she was looking at didn't actually exist anymore. They were so far away, that by the time their tiny speck of light became visible to the human eye, they had long since flickered out of existence.

She didn't know how she had gotten here. The past half-hour or so was a bit of a blur. She had let the hospital door swing shut, and run as though her life depended on it. Alex and Liz had both jumped to their feet at her sudden departure, but either they had not followed her, or they had been unable to keep up.

She wasn't sure which.

_Sean_ was not her father.

Sean was _not_ her father.

Sean was not her _father_.

She didn't know what to do.

She hadn't cried, or screamed, or really felt any intense emotion. She had decided only a few moments earlier that she was most likely in shock and that realization had left her strangely confused.

What did she have to be in shock about?

Who cared if Sean wasn't her father? It wasn't as though she had ever known the guy. The fact that her mother had lied to her rankled, but maybe she had a good reason.

A good reason?

Maria laughed darkly at that, her voice echoing in the silent street. What reason could possibly be good enough not to tell her something as important as this? She had spent her entire life thinking that her father didn't love her, didn't love them.

And now it appeared that that belief might not actually be true.

Which begged the question, who was her father, and why wasn't he in the picture anymore?

Had he died?

Had he abandoned her?

Did he know he was her father?

Alright, so that was really five questions.

The fact that she had no idea who her birth father was unsettled her. It was as though suddenly a part of her history was missing. She had always been the girl whose hippie-mother had been pregnant and abandoned by her deadbeat corporate husband.

And that was now obviously not the case.

The more she thought about, the angrier and more confused she got, and the more she wanted to know what had really happened.

Maria sighed heavily and stood up, glancing around. Knowing that she had left the hospital without telling anyone, and that her mother, Liz, and Alex would be worried, she turned around and began retracing her steps. She had left her cell phone at the hospital, so she couldn't call anyone, which meant that she actually had to talk to them in person. She needed to tell them that she was alright, she just didn't want to face her friends right now. She didn't want to have to answer their prying questions about why she had left so abruptly. She didn't want to have to explain to them what she had heard.

* * *

Ms. Topolski picked up the phone by her bedside table and glanced at the caller I.D. Sighing, she lifted it to her ear and said briskly, "Agent Topolski speaking."

"I hear you have a plan?" a voice questioned.

"Yes, Agent Pierce," Ms. Topolski replied. She ran her hand over the smooth surface of the desk and glanced out of the window. The night sky was clear, a thousand tiny dots of white light shone down from the inky blackness.

She felt uneasy.

She didn't like what she was doing.

The shooting. The suspicious behavior. Cadmium X.

They had all the clues they needed, but they had somehow reached a standstill, unable to proceed. There were too many obstacles in their way, the greatest of which was their need to maintain secrecy. Second to that was the fact that the suspects were incredibly good at floating beneath her radar, doing nothing to call unwanted attention to themselves.

Well, almost nothing. The shooting, whatever Michael had done to save Amy DeLuca, a trip across state borders…

Still, the most logical thing to do at this point was to shake things up a bit. See how her suspects reacted under pressure.

And there was one way she could do that, one way that would not blow her cover.

But Michael _had_ saved Amy DeLuca. He _did_ have a loveless foster father. He may be a threat to society, but she couldn't…

She couldn't bring herself to be okay with what she was suggesting.

Whatever else he was, he was still an unwanted boy stuck with a man who would never be a father, and the only people he seemed to have on his side, the only people he seemed to trust, where the Evans children.

But this was the only way to proceed. She didn't have a choice.

At least, that's what she told herself over and over as she clutched the phone to her ear.

Still, there was a line between right and wrong, and she knew she was about to step over it.

"Tell me," Pierce commanded sharply.

Ms. Topolski drew a hesitant breath and began to speak.

* * *

Isabel opened the door to her house and stepped inside. It was quiet, all the lights were turned off. She looked around in surprise, and called out, "Mom? Dad? Max?"

No one answered her. Walking into the kitchen, she glanced around, hoping that someone had left her a note on the table.

There was nothing.

Where was everyone?

Shrugging it off, she made her way towards her room, stepped inside, and shut the door firmly behind her. Leaning her head against the wood, she closed her eyes and thought back to the conversation with Michael.

He was mad at her, but at least he was still speaking to her. That was something.

Of course, she had agreed to talk to her mother, and she knew perfectly well that her mother was not going to change her mind on the issue.

Why would she? It wasn't like this was a first time thing, Hank was always drunk, always a bad foster father. Both of her parents had wanted to have Michael removed from his care for the past ten years, and it was a miracle that they had managed to postpone the inevitable for so long.

But now it had finally caught up with them.

Walking over to her bed, she collapsed onto it and pulled out last years yearbook. Flipping through the pictures, she wondered vaguely whether or not anyone would be asleep right now. It was still early, so it was unlikely she could find anyone to dream-walk. But she wanted to do something to take her mind off of all the issues currently plaguing them, so she ran her finger randomly over the pictures and waited until she felt the familiar pull of her gifts.

She looked around the dream she was in, and blinked in surprise.

It was Kyle's.

As a general rule, she avoided the Valentis' dreams. There was little chance of Tess finding out that she had invaded them, since Isabel was more than competent at staying hidden, and Kyle himself would probably never know that she was there. After a short debate with herself, she decided to stick around to see what the football jock dreamt about.

Hiding in the shadows of his dream, she looked around. They were in the Valenti's kitchen, and Jim was sitting at the table, working on some case. Tess, a much younger version of the blonde alien, was standing by the window, looking out at the backyard. Kyle, who appeared to be roughly the same age as Tess, was rifling through the refrigerator, looking for something to eat.

Isabel's first thought was that Kyle's dream was incredibly boring.

She was about to leave, but something held her there. As she looked around, she realized that this felt like more than just a dream. It was a _memory_. Kyle was dreaming about some memory that was probably buried so far in his subconscious that he didn't even realize he remembered it.

She wondered what was going to happen. What was so important about this moment that Kyle unknowingly held onto it?

Another quick glance at Tess determined that the girl was probably eight or nine. A few years after she had come to live in Roswell, but before the Sheriff had officially adopted her.

"There's no hamburger," Kyle complained, turning to look at his father.

Jim blinked as he looked up and said, "I guess it all got eaten. There's some pasta."

"I don't want pasta, I want hamburger," eight-or-nine-year-old Kyle demanded. He turned to Tess and asked angrily, "Did you eat it?"

Tess looked at him, her baby blue eyes wide, and said nothing. She didn't actually have to speak, the answer was written all over her face. Isabel smirked to herself, it was the only time she had ever seen Tess look contrite, at least that she could remember.

"You ate it!" Kyle cried. "Daddy, Tess ate the hamburger that _I_ wanted."

Isabel rolled her eyes. What a brat.

"Well, we can get hamburger later," the Sheriff replied dismissively, not looking up from him work. "Right now you can have the pasta."

Kyle glared at his father, then turned his attention to Tess. "I hate you!" he hissed as fear and worry leapt into Tess' now tear-filled eyes. "I wish you'd never come here! You ruin everything!"

"Kyle!" Valenti reprimanded. He turned and looked at Tess, who was looking at the floor, her eyes screwed tightly shut.

Then the dream ended.

Isabel pulled herself back into her bedroom and tried to make sense of what she had seen. So Kyle had originally not liked the fact that he was saddled with another family member. And Valenti hadn't been all that attentive to either of his children. What was so important about that?

Coming up blank, Isabel sighed and ran a hand through her hair. Her interest in Kyle's dream faded rapidly and she thought instead about Michael.

She had agreed to go with him to Homecoming.

Her mind wandered to Maria and Alex, and to what she knew their reactions would be. She opened her eyes and looked around the room. Everything was so screwed up right now, and for the first time in her entire life, she wasn't entirely sure they would be able to fix it.

* * *

Valenti pulled open the door to his office and strolled inside. He had spent the previous night thinking over what Ms. Topolski had said to him about Michael, what he himself had discovered during his investigation, and everything his father believed about aliens.

And he had come to a decision.

He dropped Michael's file on to the desk and called out, "Williams?"

Deputy Williams hurried into his superior's office. "Yes, sir?" he asked.

"I'm starting a new investigation," Valenti said. "But I still want to look into who murdered Deputy Hannigan. So I'm putting you in charge of that. Report back to me with any new developments."

"Of course, sir," Williams replied, surprised and pleased. Valenti had been working hard on the Hannigan case, putting all his energy into that one homicide. Everyone knew how important it was to him to catch whoever had killed his deputy. The fact that he was entrusting something as important as this to Williams filled the deputy with a sense of pride and accomplishment. He was obviously doing something right in his job.

Switching his thoughts to another very important case to him, he asked curiously, "Who is prosecuting the driver who hit Ms. DeLuca?"

Williams frowned and replied, "The case is going to Santa Fe. The district attorney there is handling it, I believe."

Valenti nodded. "Alright, I want updates on that case every day," he requested. He was determined to see the man behind bars.

"Of course," Williams nodded. "Oh, and sir? The new deputy who is replacing Hannigan is here. Would you like to meet him?"

"Yes, yes,'" Valenti agreed readily. "Send him in."

Williams left the office, and a moment later another man walked in. He was tall, with dark hair and slightly tan skin, and dressed in a polo shirt and a pair of jeans. His hair was perfectly groomed, and he was wearing a pair of sunglasses, which he took off as he entered the room. "Good morning, Sheriff," he greeted in a resonant voice.

"Good morning," Valenti replied, reaching out to shake the new deputy's hand.

"I just want to say, sir, that I am truly sorry about Deputy Hannigan, and I promise to help you in any way that I can to find the man who did this," the deputy said sincerely. "I lost a partner to a drug dealer once when I worked in Los Angeles, I know how hard these losses can be."

"Thank you," Valenti replied. "So tell me, what brings you out here? Roswell is quite different from Los Angeles, let me tell you."

"I know," the other man replied with a slight laugh. "I wanted a change in scenery, I guess." He paused for a moment, then said in embarrassment, "I'm sorry, I haven't introduced myself. My names Fisher. Donald Fisher."

"Welcome aboard, Deputy Fisher," Valenti said with a nod. He was about to continue, when the door swung open suddenly and Williams stuck his head into the room.

"Sir? That was the hospital. Amy DeLuca is awake."

* * *

Maria slammed her locker shut and glared at a confused Liz. "I told you," she snapped. "I'm fine. Everything's _fine_."

"But you left the hospital so quickly," Liz protested. "And you didn't get back until much later." She paused for a moment, contemplating her next words, then said carefully, "I'm not blind, Maria. Something's obviously wrong."

"You're not blind?" Maria demanded, her voice rising slightly in disbelief. "Oh, that's funny, Liz," she spat angrily. "You didn't notice how upset I was when Sean came into the picture. Or, if you did, you didn't really seem to care." She shrugged her shoulders and continued, "But I guess that's because I'm not _Max_."

Liz felt as though she'd been slapped. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She knew that Maria was, in some ways, right about that. She _had_ ignored Maria when Sean first came to town. But she was trying to repair that rift. And she knew she was right _now_, Maria was upset.

"I know, and I'm sorry," Liz murmured softly. "I screwed up then, and I am trying to make up for it. But that doesn't change the fact that I know you are upset now."

Maria rolled her eyes. "Whatever," she said dismissively. She felt slightly guilty about yelling at Liz because she knew Liz was making an effort to pay more attention to her friends. And it wasn't as though Liz was in any way responsible for what Maria had overheard between her parents… no, her mother and _Sean_.

Not her father.

But she was too frustrated by the entire situation to care much about the hurt expression on Liz's face.

"Hey, guys?" Max approached the two arguing friends, not realizing what he was interrupting. Both girls turned to look at him, and he said, "I just talked to Isabel. Apparently she and Michael are going to Homecoming together and they want to join us. I told her it was fine."

There was a shocked silence. The look on Maria's face was a mixture of incredulity and betrayal. Liz glanced back and forth quickly between her boyfriend and her best friend. Max seemed to have no idea of the bombshell he had just dropped, and Liz wondered if he was completely oblivious to Maria's feelings for Michael.

"Michael's going with Isabel?" Maria asked at last, her voice faint.

"Um… yeah," Max said. He had quite surprised when Isabel had informed him of the development only a few moments ago, but, in a very twisted way, it made sense. Isabel was one of Michael's best friends, probably his only true friend-who-is-a-girl. Well, with the exception of Tess, but he wouldn't go to Homecoming with her. If he didn't go with Isabel, who else would he go with?

Granted Max still thought of Michael as his brother, so it was a little disturbing that his sister was going to a dance with his brother…

But they weren't siblings, he was sure of that. They had never been able to explain how they knew what they did, but all four of them had agreed that Max and Isabel were siblings, but Tess and Michael were not biologically related to the Evans.

Which then made them wonder how they were related.

Just one more question to add to the never-ending list of things they didn't know about themselves.

Liz slanted a look at Maria and then said to Max, "We're going to get to class. See you later?" Without even waiting for a response from the alien, she grabbed Maria by the arm and forcefully dragged her down the hallway to the nearest bathroom.

And Max was left staring after the two girls and wondering what it was he had done wrong.

"You really are an idiot, you know that?" a voice said somewhat mockingly.

Max turned around to see Tess staring at him. He raised an eyebrow at her and asked, "What do you mean?"

Tess studied him for a moment, as though trying to determine whether or not he realized just how much he had screwed up that conversation. Coming to the conclusion that he simply had no idea about what was happening between Michael and Maria and Alex and Isabel, Tess sighed and said, "Ask your sister why she's going to the dance with Michael." Max was about to question the strange command when Tess continued in a low voice, "We're going to need to talk soon. About what to do about Jim's investigation."

And she turned and walked quickly away.

Max rubbed the back of his head absently, then grabbed his books and headed towards his class.

* * *

"Maria?"

Liz wrapped her arms tightly around her friend, knowing instinctively it was the right thing to do. Whatever Maria had been upset about before, it was clearly compounded by Max's news.

Maria swallowed back the urge to scream and instead simply shook her head in frustration and anger. "I… He's going with… with _Isabel_?" she stammered, wide-eyed. "Why?"

* * *

Ms. Topolski leaned back in her seat and stared at the man in front of her. He was tall, with blonde hair and blue eyes and pale skin. He was dressed in a crisp business suit and his expression was permanently set into a disapproving frown.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked. There was hesitation in his voice, he did not agree with Ms. Topolski's course of action.

"Yes, Mr. Hollins, I am," Ms. Topolski said smoothly. "When I visited Mr. Guerin, he was clearly drunk although it was the middle of the day, and he had no idea where Michael was. And Michael's absence record at this school indicates that he has quite often disappeared with the adults in his life knowing where he was."

"The boy does not have a good record," Mr. Hollins said thoughtfully. "He seems to be just as much of a deadbeat as his foster father."

"Michael still has managed decent grades, and has, as of yet, not gotten into any serious trouble with the law. A few schoolyard fights does not make him a deadbeat," Ms. Topolski said sharply.

"You think he is acting out home issues at school?"

Ms. Topolski nodded briefly, then said, "He has slipped through the cracks for the last ten years, and nobody seems to care. But _I_ do, and I can't honestly say that I don't see Hank as a dangerous influence. Michael is still at an impressionable age, and if he is removed from Hank's care now, he has a chance of doing something worthwhile with his life, instead of ending up like his foster father."

Mr. Collins nodded, swayed by Ms. Topolski's logic. Then he sighed heavily and said, "The problem is that he does have a record for fighting, and Roswell is a small enough town that every foster care home here knows it. I don't think any of them would take him, which means he would be forced to leave Roswell."

Ms. Topolski looked up, her eyes briefly shadowed by regret. She pushed away the twinge of remorse and nodded, a grim smile turning up the corners of her lips before she managed to school her face into a properly unreadable expression, and said simply, "I know."

* * *

Next Chapter: And You Can't Go Back

Due: Sun 8/6


	39. And You Can't Go Back

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Yeah, I have nothing to say here... On with the story!

* * *

Chapter Thirty-Eight: And You Can't Go Back

Max paused in the hallway, watching as Isabel opened her locker and put her books away. He thought back to Tess' previous comment, and wondered vaguely why Isabel and Michael were going to the Homecoming dance together. Tess had obviously been hinting at something, but he had no idea what it was.

He needed to speak to Isabel anyway, since they had to set up and time and place to discuss strategies for dealing with Jim.

Isabel closed her locker door and turned around, her eyes falling on Max. She gave him a brief smile, and he walked over to her briskly.

"Hey," she greeted.

"Hey," Max replied distractedly. He lowered his voice and glanced around the hallway, as always making sure they were not overheard. "We're going to have to meet soon," he murmured. "Jim's investigation again."

Isabel swallowed and nodded nervously, running a hand through her long hair. "Okay," she agreed, although she wondered what good would come of the meeting. If Tess could stop the investigation, she would have done it already. If Tess' powers couldn't stop it, then Isabel was fairly certain there was nothing they could do besides act normal and pray that everything would be alright.

Max shifted his weight back and forth, and stared at Isabel for a moment. She eyed him warily. He looked as though he wanted to say something else, but wasn't entirely sure how. She raised one eyebrow at him, silently asking what he wanted to tell her. He looked away for a moment, then spoke, his words coming out in a rush.

"WhyareyougoingwithMichaeltoHomecoming?"

Isabel blinked. "Wh-what?" she stuttered, trying to dissect Max's jumbled words and find the actual question. After a moment of thought, she realized what he had asked, and gave her brother a suspicious look. "What do you mean? I'm going with him because he asked me."

Max nodded slowly. "Well, I mentioned it to Liz and Maria, and they seemed… upset, I guess. And Tess said… she seemed to think there was a different reason… I just… I thought maybe… I don't know." He shrugged at the end of his halting speech to show that he really had no idea what to think.

Isabel flushed and turned away from Max. "Well, Tess is wrong," she said firmly. "And I don't know why Maria was upset because she's going with _Alex_."

Something in the way she said the last sentence made Max pause. He frowned at her, trying to read between the lines of her answer. The only explanation he could come up with was that she was going to Homecoming with Michael in order to make Maria and Alex jealous. But that was ridiculous.

Wasn't it?

Isabel refused to meet Max's eyes. She was still looking determinedly in the other direction when Michael approached them.

"Hey," he greeted casually. "Everything alright?" He glanced back and forth between the two siblings, slanting a final look at Isabel. "You guys seem tense."

Max opened his mouth to answer, but Isabel beat him to it. Throwing Michael a grateful look for his interruption, she said, "Jim's opened the investigation again. We're worried."

Max nodded in agreement, deciding not to push the issue of Homecoming. There would be plenty of time to retrospectively think about the conversation later.

"Where were you last night?" Isabel asked suddenly, turning to Max again. "I came home to look for you, but you weren't there."

"What?" Max was confused for a moment, then realization dawned. He had forgotten to tell Isabel and Michael the news. "Amy's awake. Liz and I went to the hospital to be with Maria. Alex was there also."

Michael stared at Max for a moment, his gaze so intense it seemed to bore straight through Max's head. "Amy's awake?" he asked at last, an odd quality in his voice.

"Um… yeah," Max answered. He switched his gaze to Isabel, who didn't seem as surprised by the news. She too was looking at Michael, and there was a calculating look in her eyes. She seemed to know something that Max didn't, and Max was left, yet again, with the feeling that something was going on a few inches above his head.

"Oh… I didn't know," Michael said at last. "She didn't tell me."

"Well, have you seen her at all today?" Max pointed out logically. The only times he had seen Maria, she had been with Liz, and Michael hadn't been anywhere in sight. So really, was it any wonder he didn't know? How was she supposed to tell him if he wasn't there?

"Yeah." Michael rubbed the back of his head absently and thought about that for a moment. Then he said abruptly, "I should go," and turned and walked away, his expression still unreadable.

"Yeah, me too," Isabel muttered, and she too walked away, leaving a befuddled Max standing alone in the hallway, once again wondering what he had said wrong.

He turned, and caught sight of Tess several feet away on the opposite side of the hall. She was looking at him, and her blue eyes were filled with mocking laughter. He groaned, and wondered if everyone except him was in on this secret.

A hand on his arm caused him to jump, startled, and he found himself staring in surprise at Liz, who had appeared out of nowhere.

"Oh, hey," he said softly, giving her a smile. "Didn't see you much today."

"Yeah," Liz agreed. "I was with Maria. She's really shaken over something, but she won't tell me what it is." She shrugged and dropped her hand to her side. "I'm worried about her, I guess."

Max studied his girlfriend for a moment, then said, "I know we had plans for tonight, but if you want to cancel to be with Maria…"

"You'd be okay with that?" Liz asked hopefully.

Inwardly, Max knew the answer was no, he wasn't going to be okay with it. He wanted to spend time with Liz, he had seen her less and less since their return from Marathon. Her decision to spend more time with her friends was making it almost impossible for the two of them to have any… _alone time._

"It'd be fine," Max replied. If something was wrong with Maria, Liz really did need to be there, and he understood. He didn't want to understand, but he did, and if it was important to Liz…

Liz gave him a brilliant smile and killed him on the cheek. "You're very understanding, and I promise the next date we have, even if the world is ending, I will not cancel it."

Max laughed at that, and gave her a smile of his own. Then, deciding now was as good a time as any to confirm his suspicions, he asked abruptly, "Why are Michael and Isabel going to Homecoming together?"

Liz gaped at him. She had certainly never expected to hear the question from him, not after their previous conversation with Maria had revealed just how oblivious Max was to what was going on between the four of them.

"I thought… I don't know. Tess overhead when I told you that Michael and Isabel were going together, and she said I was an idiot. Like there was something else going on that I didn't see… She seemed to think maybe Michael and Isabel had an ulterior motive…" He let the sentence trail off.

Liz was staring at him with wide eyes, and he knew that at least part of his suspicion was correct. There was some ulterior motive here, and it did appear that everyone besides himself knew what it was.

"Does… does Michael… are Michael and Isabel…" Max swallowed, then asked carefully, "Are they trying to make Alex and Maria jealous? And… are Alex and Maria going to Homecoming to make Michael and Isabel jealous?"

Liz blinked. "You really had no idea before, did you?" she asked incredulously. Max shook his head, and she continued, "You know, as much as I hate to say this, Tess actually was right on this one." She slipped his hand into his and grinned. "You really are an idiot."

Max nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, I guess I am," he conceded. But as he and Liz walked down the hall together, he couldn't help but think that at least he wasn't as much of an idiot as their four friends. These plans to make each other jealous were going to backfire.

How could they not?

* * *

"Hey, Tess?" Kyle asked as he took a seat across from her at the Crashdown. "Can I ask you a question."

Tess glanced up from the milkshake she was drinking and shrugged. "Sure," she replied easily.

"I had this dream last night," Kyle explained. "I think it might have been a memory." He paused and glanced over at Sara and Jessica, who were staring at him expectantly. He was secretly glad that Trudy had opted out of joining her friends after school. He didn't want to see her right now, which would have made talking to Tess impossible had the other girl tagged along.

"Of what?" Tess asked, slightly bored and having no idea where the conversation was heading.

"It was only a year or two after you came to live with us. I was yelling at you because you ate the last hamburger and I had wanted it."

Sara and Jessica burst into a fit of giggles, and Kyle gave them an annoyed look. He turned his attention back to Tess, how was staring at him with an odd expression on her face. For a moment, he could have sworn he saw alarm flash through her eyes, but the emotion was gone so quickly he was left wondering if he had imagined it.

"Yes, well, you were a brat back then," Tess said.

"Still is," Sara interjected. She narrowed her eyes at Kyle. "He's going to Homecoming with Pam Troy."

"What's wrong with that?" Kyle shot back defensively.

Jessica rolled her eyes. "Kyle, we all know what you are trying to do," she informed him. "Even Trudy knows. You want to make her jealous."

"I do not," Kyle snapped back. "Trudy and I are _completely_ over."

"Really?" Sara asked curiously. "So you wouldn't be upset at all if Trudy and Jason both skipped forth period… and went to the Eraser Room?"

Tess shot Sara a warning glance, she knew perfectly well this was not a good time to be goading Kyle.

Kyle gave Sara a cool glare and replied, "I am fine with it. In fact, I am happy that Trudy has been able to move on." The anger in his eyes and the way his hands clenched into tight fists under the table gave away his true disposition to the idea of Trudy and Jason dating.

Tess intervened swiftly, not wanting the conversation to get out of control. "Why were you asking me about hamburgers?" she questioned, forcing Kyle's attention back to the dream.

"Oh, I was just curious if you remembered that. I mean, we were probably only eight or nine, but I thought…" Realizing that his question was probably ridiculous, he sighed and said, "Sorry, it's probably a stupid question."

"Well, you've been doing a lot of stupid things lately," Jessica cut in, a smile plastered to her face. Kyle refused to meet her gaze, looking instead in the other direction. A moment later, then door to the Crashdown swung open, and Cliff entered, making his way over to the table. He took a seat next to Kyle, and gave the girls a brief smile.

"Hey, what's up?" he asked, his gaze fixed on Sara.

Sara smiled at her boyfriend and replied, "Oh, we're just talking about Kyle being an idiot."

Tess groaned inwardly. Yes, she knew that Kyle was being an idiot. But she also knew Trudy well enough to know that the other girl was only going to Homecoming with Jason to make Kyle jealous. She may like Jason as a friend, but nothing more. They were both being incredibly stupid.

And the problem was that, if they kept it up, it could very well end up dividing the group. Sara and Jessica would be forced to take Trudy's side because the girls had to stick together. The rest of the jocks, including Cliff and Chris, would side with Kyle. That would leave Tess in the middle, forced to chose between her brother and one of her best friends.

Kyle, it seemed, also knew they were heading for dangerous ground, and changed the subject adroitly. Giving Tess one last look, he said, "I was just hoping to have someone confirm the memory. You know, to make sure it really was a memory and not just a dream."

Tess gave him an disbelieving look. "You thought I'd remember some random incident from at least six or seven years ago were you got mad at me because you had to eat pasta instead of hamburger?" She rolled her eyes. "Sorry to disappoint."

Kyle shrugged apologetically. "I was just curious. It doesn't even really matter."

And the topic of conversation changed to school, teachers, homework, football, and movies, and the dream was forgotten.

It wasn't until much later that evening, when, thinking over Tess' response, Kyle realized that he had never actually mentioned anything to her about having to eat pasta.

* * *

Mr. Collins gathered the last of his papers together and placed them inside his open briefcase. It had been a long day, and he knew the one to come would be even longer. So far he had contacted the majority of the foster homes in Roswell, and none of them were willing to take Michael Guerin. He supposed, given Michael's reputation, he couldn't blame them. But their unwillingness to give the boy a chance meant that he would most likely be sent from Roswell.

Perhaps it was for the best, Mr. Collins reasoned. Perhaps it would give Michael a chance to start over in a new place. He would no longer be followed by all the old prejudices that were currently attached to him. He could live with a new family, one that cared for him, and he could become a new and better person.

If only he could get over leaving every memory of the last ten years behind.

A judge would need to declare Hank Guerin no longer fit to be Michael's foster father. That would not be too difficult to do, all things considered. Ms. Topolski could testify, and anyone else who knew Hank could probably testify as well. It would not take much to convince the judge, and then Michael would be free from that home.

But since this was a case of possible domestic violence, the first step would be to take the matter to the Sheriff.

Mr. Collins pulled his coat on. He had met Sheriff Valenti on a number of occasions, mostly because of some complaint brought against a foster child or foster parents. He liked the Sheriff well enough, and it would not be too difficult to convince Jim Valenti to help him on this.

He left his office, deciding to stop by the Sheriff's workplace on his way home.

* * *

Amy DeLuca leaned back against the pillows of her bed and stared at Sean, watching as he watched her. When Maria had not returned the previous night, she had sent Sean to find her daughter. Liz had informed her that Maria had left the hospital and that she was very upset about something, but she had eventually made it back to her home.

Amy worried about whatever it was that had upset Maria. She pulled the blankets tighter around her and closed her eyes. If Maria was upset already, she didn't want to add to her worries by telling her that Sean was not her father.

Amy studied Sean for a moment. He had finally torn his gaze away from her, and was now staring at all the machines and wires currently attached to her. Something was different about Sean, although she wasn't sure what it was. He was almost too… too quiet to be the man she remembered.

Last night, when they had talked about everything that had happened, he had volunteered almost no information. She had expected an actual conversation about their sudden split. It had happened so fast, so abruptly, that they had never really had a chance to discuss everything that had happened. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had always hoped that he would come back to her, and they would be able to continue with their lives. And so she had waited for him for days, weeks, months… But when the months had turned into years, she had finally let go of her hopes, and tried to move on with her life.

But she never divorced him.

And once a year she would receive an e-mail from him, providing all the information she would need to fill out tax forms.

Maria didn't know that she had stayed in slight contact with Sean. Another secret to add to the list of mysteries she would have to reveal to her daughter eventually.

But last night, and this morning, Sean had not wanted to talk. He had agreed to her request to keep him company, and he had listened when she had brought up everything that had happened, but he had not supplied anything of his own.

It was almost as though he did not remember any of it.

Was that possible? Amy thought perhaps it was, perhaps he had truly moved on so much that he could no longer remember what had once torn them apart… and what had once held them together.

Sean looked back at her with a smile, and she suddenly shivered, not really knowing why.

There was something about his eyes, something not quite right…

The door opened, and a head poked through it. Amy turned in her bed and met the eyes of her visitor, and her face paled drastically. She had forgotten about him…

"Jim," she managed to croak out, gesturing for him to enter the room. "Jim… this is Sean Harrison." Her throat was dry, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, making it difficult to speak. All she could really do was swallow her fears and watch as her husband and boyfriend stared at each other.

Jim looked from Amy to the man sitting on the edge of her bed and extended his hand. "Nice to meet you," he said formally as Sean grasped his hand in a firm grip.

An awkward silence descended on the three adults, then Amy said hesitantly, "So…how are you, Jim? How are Kyle and Tess?" It was a meaningless question, meant to fill the uncomfortable silence that filled the room.

"They're alright. We were very worried about you," Jim said, and his answer was just as meaningless as her question. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, suddenly feeling out of place.

The silence fell over them once more.

* * *

The sharp ringing of a phone broke through the silence of the office, and Dr. Drake looked up from the pile of papers on his desk. He had been rereading Amy DeLuca's file, trying to determine the best course of action. She had a difficult recovery ahead of her, and he wanted the treatment during the following weeks to be the best she could receive.

He reached automatically for his phone, not even glancing at the caller ID. "Dr. Drake," he said distractedly.

"Justin?"

Drake put his papers down and switched all of his attention to the phone. "Nick?" he asked curiously. "Did you find something else?"

"Um… Not really. The lead on the Hoffman story was pretty much a dead end."

Justin blinked several times, trying to work out the meaning of Nick's words. Who was Hoffman, and how did it relate to Michael Guerin or any of that?

"I don't understand," Justin replied, confused.

There was another pause, then Nick said in a firm tone, "I have to _drop_ the Hoffman case. There's nothing there. It's all a _big_ mess and I don't really want to get _caught_ in the middle of it. Printing a wrong story can ruin your career, almost as fast as having someone discover that you've been _tapping phone lines_."

Realization dawned. Hoffman was just a cover for what the AP reporter was really trying to convey, and Justin swallowed nervously when he finally understood the meaning of the cryptic words. He chewed his lip thoughtfully for a moment, trying to come up with a way of phrasing his question. At last, he asked hesitantly, "Do you think there is any _danger_ that this story could backfire somehow?"

"Maybe," Nick replied thoughtfully. "All the more reason for me to drop it _now_." There was another slight pause, then Nick said, "Hey, I've got to go, I'll see you around." And he hung up abruptly, the sharp click at the other end of the line the only indication that he was no longer there.

Justin replaced the phone on the receiver and closed his eyes for a moment, running through what Nick had just tried to tell him.

His phone lines were tapped?

He glanced at the phone and fought back the urge to hurl it out the window. When had they been tapped, and how? And why? Was the FBI really so worried about his investigation that they would take such extreme steps to keep tabs on what he was doing? And how did they even find out about his investigation in the first place?

The only thing he really knew was that he was in over his head.

* * *

Next Chapter: Heard It Through the Grapevine

Due: Sun 8/13


	40. Heard It Through the Grapevine

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's Note: The title of this chapter is also the title of a song that has been sung by a bunch of people, including Creedence Clearwater, Marvin Gaye, and The Temptations. I can't really credit it to anyone since I don't know who sang it first, but at least I can say that it is not mine.

So the ruler bar doesn't seem to work right now. I'm going to be seperating the different with the words 'new section' (creative, I know). If the ruler starts working again some time soon I'll probably come back and edit the chapter to include the lines, but for right now, this is what I'm stuck with.

beginning of chapter

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Heard It Through the Grapevine

"What are you doing here?" Maria asked sharply as she looked up from her book and caught sight of Michael standing in front of her.

"I heard about your mother," Michael explained hesitantly. "I just wanted to say I'm glad that she's awake." He shifted his weight awkwardly and looked around the hospital hallway. "I thought you might be here, and so…"

"I didn't realize you cared," Maria snapped angrily. "I figured you'd be hanging out with _Isabel_."

Michael's eyes narrowed and his expression hardened. "What's that supposed to mean?" he growled.

"Oh, just that you two seem awful close," Maria hissed. "I mean, you are going to Homecoming with her, aren't you?"

Michael wondered vaguely how Maria knew that, but figured that she had probably heard it from Liz or Alex. And speaking of Alex… "Well, you and Alex seem pretty close also, but you aren't hanging out with him all the time," Michael retorted. He glanced up at the clock on the wall and noted that it was almost seven-thirty. It was getting late.

Maria flushed and looked away for a moment, then stood up and started pacing. "Go away," she said suddenly.

Michael blinked. "What?" he asked, confused.

"Go away," Maria repeated. "Just leave me alone."

Michael tilted his head to one side and, in a sudden burst of clarity, realized that whatever Maria was so upset about right now, it had almost nothing to do with him. It was something else…

"What happened?" he demanded, a thousand thoughts racing through his head. Had Amy gotten worse? Did they find some physical or mental damage that they didn't know was there before? Had something happened with Sean?

"What do you think happened?" Maria snarled at him, her lips pursed together into a thin line. "_You_ asked _Isabel_ to Homecoming!"

A brief flare of triumph welled up within him as he realized that Maria was jealous. But instead of arguing the Homecoming point, he simply pressed, "Something else is bothering you. What is it?"

"Nothing you would understand," Maria argued back. She glanced at the door to her mother's room. Sean had left a few minutes after she had arrived at the hospital, and had mentioned in passing that he had met Jim Valenti. She wondered vaguely how that meeting had gone.

"Try me," Michael replied, folding his arms over his chest.

Maria stared at him. She should have gone into the room a long time ago. Her mother was probably wondering why she had never shown up after Sean had first made his appearance. After all, Amy had no idea that Maria had overheard the last part of the conversation, so she had no way of knowing what her daughter was currently going through.

But Maria didn't want to go into that room. She didn't want to hear her mother's explanation, because she didn't want those answers. She just wanted to go back to the way things were previously, before she knew the truth about Sean, before she knew that her mother had never divorced him, before… before all this.

On the other hand, she didn't really want to be standing here, having this conversation with Michael either.

"It's nothing," Maria said at last, shaking her head repeatedly, as though that would make the problem less real. "It's nothing."

"You've never been a good liar," Michael commented dryly. "That's why we were all so worried when Valenti brought you in for questioning after you first found out that we were aliens." Actually, he thought, they were worried because she had threatened to expose them all. But that was besides the point; and she really wasn't that good at lying.

"You think this is about you?" Maria hissed, knowing even as she said the words they were completely irrational. But Michael always had some way of tying everything back to the aliens and their struggles and right now it was _her_ problems she was worried about, not theirs. "You think you're the only one who has problems right now?"

Michael opened his mouth to say something, then stopped and shook his head, unsure of how to respond. Obviously he was treading on dangerous ground.

"This isn't about you, and you have no idea what I am going through right now!" Maria continued.

"Well, I would know if you told me!" Michael spat back. "But you won't. You didn't even tell me that your mother was awake. I was the _last_ person to know!"

"This isn't about you," Maria repeated, furious.

"Then stop blaming me for whatever is wrong," Michael snapped.

"I'm not," Maria defended herself. "You're the one who keeps making this about you. As though you have _any_ idea what happened or what I am dealing with!"

"Then tell me!"

"Sean isn't my father!" Maria hissed in a low voice. "My mother has been lying to me about it for _years_. I have no idea who my real father is, or whether or not she was ever going to tell me the truth. Not to mention the fact that she lied to me about not having ever divorced Sean! And now… now…" She paused long enough to gasp for breath before rushing on, "I don't know how my father is, and everything I thought I knew I find out is completely wrong! And you're acting like this is all about _you_ and _your_ problems, and you couldn't possibly understand any of what this feels like for _me_!"

There was a dead silence in the hallway as Michael looked at her coldly. Shutters dropped down over her eyes, and when he finally spoke, his voice was positively glacial. "So you're feeling lost and confused because you suddenly realize that you don't know who you are. And you don't want to believe that it makes you different from who you used to think you were, but at the same time, you know it does. And you want the answers now, but you are also afraid of getting them because what if you don't like what you find out?"

Maria lifted her eyes to stare at him, her lips slightly parted as she realized what he was implying.

Every word dripping with sarcasm, Michael continued, "You're right, Maria. What could I possibly know about that?" He glanced at the door behind Maria, said briskly, "Tell your mother that I'm glad she is awake," and stalked away.

Maria watched him go, then sank onto the bench and buried her head in her hands.

new section

Jim Valenti was not a subtle man. He completely and utterly lacked the nuance that and delicacy that seemed an integral part of interactions in any society. Often he reflected that perhaps that was why his wife had left him.

But for all his lack of subtlety, he could not be called oblivious. And he had been perfectly able to spot the fact that, despite everything she had once told him, there was still something between Amy and Sean.

He walked up the steps to the Evans house and rapped his knuckles firmly on the door. As he stood waiting for the answer, he let his mind wander back to the awkward conversation with his girlfriend. His relief that she was alive and recovering was overshadowed by his frustration at the entire situation, and he had barely stayed more than five minutes before making up some excuse to leave the hospital room.

Perhaps he was simply a fool for thinking that he could ever hold a decent relationship with a woman. After all, he had failed spectacularly with Kyle's mother.

The door opened to reveal Mrs. Evans smiling face. "Jim," she greeted him politely. "Come inside." She stepped away from the door and allowed the Sheriff to enter.

"Thank you," he replied, equally politely. "I hope I am not interrupting dinner?" A brief glance to his watch indicated that it was seven-thirty, and likely that inner was already over, but he still felt the need to ask.

"Oh, no, we've finished," Mrs. Evans assured him. "Would you like some tea?" She gestured for him to follow her into the kitchen, chatting easily as she did so, "Max was just telling me about Amy DeLuca being awake. That is wonderful news, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," Valenti replied. He stepped into the kitchen and noticed both Isabel and Max sitting at the table, working on their homework. They both paused and looked up at him, and did he imagine it or did they looked momentarily afraid?

"Good evening, Max, Isabel," he said softly.

"Good evening, Sheriff," Isabel replied, giving him a smile that appeared slightly strained. She closed the book she was reading, and Valenti caught sight of the cover.

"Oh, are you reading _A Midsummer's Night Dream_ as well?" Valenti asked interestedly. "I think Tess chose that play also." The English class had been assigned an essay on any Shakespeare play they chose. Valenti wasn't entirely sure the extent of the essay, just that reading a play was involved. Kyle was reading _Macbeth_, but Tess had opted for the lighter comedy.

Isabel gave another smile and said, "It is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays."

"What kind of tea would you like?" Mrs. Evans asked. "We have herbal or regular." She glanced at the kettle now filled with water and continued, "Unless you would like coffee?"

"No, thank you, regular tea is fine," Valenti replied. Giving Max and Isabel a quick glance, he then turned back to Mrs. Evans and said, "I needed to speak to you and Mr. Evans about something… in private. Is he home?"

Max and Isabel took this as their cue to leave, and quickly gathered up their school supplies. "I'll get Dad," Isabel offered as the two of them left the kitchen.

"Is everything alright?" Mrs. Evans asked in concern.

Valenti nodded and let his thoughts wander to the conversation he had had upon returning to the office after visiting Amy. "I'm not sure. I had a discussion with Mr. Collins, a social worker at the Child Protection Services. He brought up a few matters that I wanted to discuss with a lawyer… and someone who knows Michael Guerin."

Mrs. Evans' eyes narrowed. "Is Michael alright?" she asked instantly as she thought over all the horrible things that could have happened to him.

"At the moment, yes," Valenti assured her. "But apparently Mr. Collins wants to look into other living arrangements for Michael." He rubbed the back of his head absently and turned to greet Mr. Evans, who had just entered the kitchen. "Philip," he extended his hand.

Ms. Evans shook his hand firmly. "Good to see you, Jim. I heard about Amy, it is wonderful news that she is awake."

"Yes," Valenti agreed. "It is."

The tea kettle whistled, and Mrs. Evans poured the boiling hot water into three cups. "Have a seat at the table," she instructed. The two men complied with her request, and she took a seat next to her husband. Taking a sip of the tea, she asked curiously, "What do you mean by other living arrangements?"

The Sheriff shook his head. "Exactly what it sounds like. He wants Michael removed from Hank's care."

Mr. Evans frowned at that. "Did something happen with Hank that would precipitate this?"

The Sheriff shrugged. "I'm not sure," he replied honestly. "Mr. Collins informed me that there had been some new developments, but he was not at liberty to say what they were." Mrs. Evans raised an eyebrow at that, and Valenti elaborated, "Obviously if there had been some violent altercation, I would have been informed. What is more likely is that someone approached Mr. Collins with concerns about Michael's welfare. A teacher, perhaps, or a friend."

"Or Michael himself?" Mrs. Evans asked, thinking back to her previous conversation with Isabel. Maybe her daughter had finally convinced Michael to speak to someone about what was really going on in that home.

"That's a possibility also," Valenti agreed, although silently he thought it was very unlikely that Michael would do anything like that. "In a case like this, Mr. Collins wouldn't be at liberty to inform me of the identity of the person until the matter is brought to court."

"It will be taken to court, then?" Mr. Evans asked with a feeling of satisfaction. It was about time that Hank paid for the type of person he was.

"Oh, definitely," Valenti replied. "Although I am not sure there is much of a case. As far as I can tell, we have no records of Hank actually physically abusing the boy, and while being constantly inebriated certainly does not make him an adequate foster parent, it is by no means illegal."

"So, what did you want to talk to us about?" Mr. Evans asked, placing his teacup on the table and giving Valenti a hard stare. This entire conversation was enlightening, and he was glad that Michael would finally be rid of his deadbeat father, but he was still unclear as to how the subject related directly to him and to his wife.

"I wanted your opinion on the legal aspects of the case because I think we may hit a problem," Valenti replied. "You see, none of the foster homes in Roswell will take Michael, so he will end up most likely having to move to a different city."

"A judge will be loathe to do that to a boy, especially one who has lived in the same city for ten years," Mr. Evans said instantly. "And if, as you claim, Hank hasn't broken any laws or been physically abusive, it may be difficult to convince a judge that separating Michael from his friends is really in his best interests."

"What if Michael was the one who went to speak to Mr. Collins?" Mrs. Evans asked. Both men turned to look at her, and she gave a brief synopsis of her conversation with Isabel after Hank had shown up at their door looking for Michael. "Isabel said she was going to speak to Michael, to try to get him to switch homes. Maybe she managed to convince him," Mrs. Evans finished.

"Maybe…" Mr. Evans looked thoughtful. "But I doubt he realized at the time that it would mean leaving Roswell. If he knows that now, his reaction may very well have changed."

"True…" Mrs. Evans agreed with a sigh. She found herself incredibly frustrated that no foster home would take the boy. He really was a good person with a warm heart, even if it was buried under his cold attitude and not entirely pleasant track record. So he was a little rough around the edges, it wasn't as though he was a criminal.

Valenti gave Mr. Evans a nod and said, "Exactly. Anyway, I came to you both because I'm trying to figure out the best legal way to approach this matter. I want to do whatever is in Michael's best interests, but at this point, I'm not entirely sure what it is, or how to do it. And since you both know Michael…" He let the sentence trail off and looked at them expectantly.

Mrs. Evans stood up and said, "I guess I should put on some more water for more tea."

new section

"Did you hear that Sara and Jessica got into an argument with Kyle about going to the dance with Pam Troy?"

"Well that was bound to happen after Trudy decided to go with Jason."

"I know, but now there might be a major fallout in the group."

"Hmm, wonder whose side Tess is going to be on?"

"No idea…"

"Guess what else I heard? Michael Guerin is going to the dance."

"Wait, seriously? _Guerin_ is going to a school dance?"

"Yep. With Isabel Evans."

"Well, she is hot."

"Yeah, but I wonder what her brother thinks about his best friend hooking up with his sister?"

"I heard that Michael and Max got into a fist fight over it."

"Well, I heard that Max threatened to stop talking to Isabel if she continued to date Michael."

"Of, so they are actually dating? I wasn't sure if they just hooked up for the dance?"

"I don't know, but either way…"

"Well, really, Max can't complain, can he? Not after he was dating Liz Parker while she was still going out with Kyle."

"True. Tomorrow night is going to be interesting, isn't it?"

"Definitely."

new section

"I can't believe there are actually rumors floating around the school about me," Isabel commented as she took a seat next to Max at the table and opened her lunch bag. She glanced up at the blazing sun and ran a hand through her long hair. "I mean, I'm just me. I'm not really worth having rumors about, am I?"

"Maybe not," Max agreed, "but Michael actually going to a dance is a pretty big occurrence around here, and that is something to talk about." He rolled his eyes, although he too was a little unnerved by the amount of attention the three of them were getting. A freshman he didn't even recognize had come up to him today to and asked whether or not it was true that he had tried to beat up Michael.

Actually, the entire idea of him trying to beat of Michael was ridiculous because anyone could see, just by looking at the two of them, that there was no possible way he would have been able to land a single punch on his best friend. Michael was taller, stronger, and most likely a much better fighter.

Despite the rumors now traveling rapidly through the school, Isabel and Max both had another issue on their minds, namely why the Sheriff had come over last night. They had tried eavesdropping on the conversation, but at one point Mrs. Evans had actually had the sense to close the kitchen door, and that had been the end of that. The only thing they did manage to glean was that the conversation had revolved around Michael and Hank, and both Max and Isabel were worried.

And they had grown even more worried when Mrs. Evans had told Isabel later that night how pleased she was that her daughter had managed to convince Michael to talk to Child Protection Services, and that he was doing the right thing, and that it would all work out for the best, no matter where Michael ended up.

Because, of course, Isabel knew there was no chance that Michael actually had spoken to Child Protection Services, and that then begged the question, who had? And why?

They were both contemplating this conversation when a voice cut through their thoughts, asking coolly, "So, Max, where's your bruise?"

Max blinked and looked up at the silhouette standing behind him. She was standing in front of the sun, making it almost impossible to see her darkened features. But there was no mistaking that mocking voice.

"What are you talking about, Tess?" Max asked wearily.

Tess stepped around him and leaned against the table, idly observing the two siblings. "Well, I heard from Trudy, who heard from Sara, who got it from Cliff, that Michael punched you after you told him that if he continued sleeping with your sister you weren't going to speak to him anymore." She gave a wicked grin and turned to Isabel, "So you and Michael are sleeping together and you didn't even think to tell me? Oh, _Izzy_, I'm hurt."

"Michael and I are _not_ sleeping together!" Isabel practically screeched.

"Well, that's good to know," a voice commented, and all eyes turned to see Liz approaching, Michael trailing her.

Tess struggled to maintain a straight face and the embarrassed look on Isabel's face. "That's not what half the school thinks," Tess replied easily.

Isabel rolled her eyes and looked down at her lunch. "Let them think what they want," she responded at last. "I don't care."

Tess shrugged, no longer interested in teasing Isabel, and turned to Max. "We need to talk. How about tomorrow before the dance? We can meet at the cliffs in the afternoon?"

Max glanced over at Michael and Isabel, who nodded in agreement to the plan, and then turned back to Tess and replied, "Sure."

"Tess, what are you doing over here?" a voice asked, and Sara sashayed over to her friend. She gave Isabel a cool look and said, "So you and Guerin, huh? Never really pictured you as liking the juvenile delinquent type."

Isabel bristled. "Michael's not…"

"Whatever," Sara cut off Isabel's heated defense, threw a icy smirk at Michael, then glanced at Tess. "Why are you over here?" she repeated.

"Just seeing if the rumors are true," Tess replied lightly. "Which, unfortunately, they aren't." The two of them walked away, leaving an annoyed Isabel in their wake.

"Ignore them," Michael said as he took a seat next to her. Liz flopped into the seat across from them and nodded to Isabel, agreeing with Michael's statement.

There was a silence as the four of them stared at their respective lunches and tried to think of something to say. Finally, Michael broke the tense silence and turned to Liz, asking, "Have you spoken to Maria about why she is being so… snappy?"

"Um… she said she didn't want to talk about it," Liz replied, biting into her apple. "When I talked to her this morning, she said she had gone to the hospital last night, but then had never actually managed to talk to her mother. I was supposed to hang out with her last night, but she canceled last minute because she wanted to be alone."

"You should talk to her," Michael said quietly.

Liz gave him an appraising look. "You know why she's upset." It wasn't a question, but Michael answered anyway.

"Yes."

"Why?" Liz demanded.

"I can't…" Michael sighed and shook his head, wondering silently why he was even respecting Maria's privacy on the matter. Who cared whether or not she got mad at him, she was already furious as it was. But still… he couldn't bring himself to say exactly what was wrong, so he settled for simply pressing, "You should talk to her."

Liz didn't need telling twice. She stuffed her half-eaten apple back into her lunch bag, grabbed her books, kissed Max on the cheek, and set off in search of her friend.

Max watched her go, then turned to Isabel and jerked his head in Michael's direction. Isabel got the hint and said slowly, "Michael, we need to talk…"

Michael looked at her in confusion and suspicion. "What happened?" he asked slowly.

Isabel looked over at Max, who turned to Michael, and said, "Valenti came over last night to talk to our parents."

"About what?" Michael questioned, already dreading the answer.

"You."

new section

"Okay, so I know you don't want to talk about whatever is bothering you. And I know I haven't been the best of friends lately, so maybe I don't deserve to play the best friend card right now. But you know what? I don't really care. Because you still are my best friend, and you are obviously upset, and I am worried. So spill."

Maria looked up at Liz. She was sitting alone on a desk in an empty classroom, staring blankly off into space, thinking over everything she had screwed up in the past two days. Not going to see her mother again, yelling at Liz when she was just trying to help, taking all her anger out on Michael when all she really had to be upset with him about was Isabel…

"I don't…"

"Nope, sorry, not going to work," Liz said firmly, slipping into the desk next to Maria.

Maria gave a ghost of a smile and said, "You don't even know what I was going to say."

"Well, you were either going to say that you don't want to talk about it, you don't know what I mean because you aren't upset, or you don't think it is any of my business," Liz retorted. "And none of those are going to work. Tell me."

"I can't," Maria murmured. "I just…"

"How bad could it be?" Liz asked, regretting the question almost as soon as she had said it.

"Sean isn't my biological father."

Whatever Liz had been expecting, it was not that. For a moment, her brain froze, and she couldn't think of the right words to say. But the scientist instinct kicked in, and she went about quickly determining the facts.

"Did your mother tell you this?"

"I heard her talking to Sean about it," Maria replied.

"Did you ask her about it?"

"I haven't spoken to her since I heard what she said."

"Have you spoken to Sean?"

"No."

"So you've been avoiding them?"

"Yes."

"So all you really know right now is part of a conversation that you overheard between your mother and her long lost husband that you weren't even supposed to hear anyway?" Liz concluded.

Maria nodded mutely.

Liz considered this for a moment, then said, "Okay, here is what we are going to do. The pod squad is having a Czechoslovakian meeting tomorrow afternoon. While they are talking about that, you're going to go talk to your mother. And I'll come with you… Alex also… and we'll wait in the hallway outside the room in case you need moral support. And you can ask your mother for all the details, and then once you know more about what happened, we can figure out how to proceed from there."

"Liz, this isn't come hypothesis that we are trying to test out. This is my mother lying to me for sixteen years," Maria snapped, slightly annoyed at Liz's brisk manor.

"I know," Liz said sympathetically. "But you don't know why your mother lied, and maybe she had a reason for it. Maybe it wasn't a good reason, but still… you need to know the whole truth before you get upset about it."

"A little late for that," Maria grumbled.

Liz gave Maria an appraising look, and said suddenly, "You're afraid of hearing what your mother will say when you ask her those questions." Maria didn't answer, but Liz knew she was right, so she continued, "What is the worst she could say?"

"That I was unwanted and am the reason she and Sean split up," Maria replied.

Liz raised an eyebrow. "Do you have any reason to believe that she didn't want you?" the brunette asked reasonably.

"No," Maria replied honestly.

"Does Sean not being your father change how you feel about your mother? Does it make you love her less? Do you think it makes her love you less?"

"No."

"What if your mother had an affair while she was married? What if you are actually adopted? What if you are really an alien?" Liz asked, her lips twitching into a grin at the last suggestion. Maria gave her a blank stare, and she continued, Would any of that change the fact that the woman lying in the hospital bed is your mother? The person who raised you, who loves you, who yelled at us when we tried to make a cake in third grade and set the oven on fire?"

Maria shook her head.

"Then talk to her. Find out the truth. She's your mother, you owe her that much."

Maria swallowed and nodded. "You're right," she said with a decisive nod. "You're right."

end of chapter

Next Chapter: A Night to Remember

Due: Sun 8/20

Author's note: So in the next chapter we find out the truth about Maria's father, the pod squad discusses what to do about Jim's investigation, and Homecoming finally happens.


	41. A Night to Remember

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's Note: Part of this discussion deals with a subject I normally don't write about, sexual abuse. It is a very serious topic and if you or anyone you know has been a victim of that or any other form of abuse, it is imperative that you inform the police immediately, and you or your friend/family should seek help from a therapist or social worker. This is the only time in this story that I am going to specifically request no flames (only on the Maria/Amy conversation, you can trash the rest of the chapter if you want) because this is an important and rather sensitive issue to me.

* * *

Chapter Forty: A Night To Remember

Tess looked at the three sets of eyes that were watching her slow approach, and thought idly that this was like the old times, before Max had healed Liz, when it had just been the four of them. Max was leaning against the rocky cliffs, half in the shade, half in the sun. Isabel was sitting on a large rock a few feet away from Max, and the bright sun was cascading over her blonde hair. Michael, a scowl fixed to his features, his arms crossed over his chest, was watching her from his vantage point between the two Evans siblings.

She reached them and pushed her sunglasses up onto her head. Flicking a stay blonde curl out of her eyes, she turned her attention to Max, who sighed heavily and said, "Alright, I guess we should start talking."

"So, Jim has reopened his investigation?" Isabel questioned apprehensively.

Tess nodded slowly. "I don't know how much investigating he is going to be doing. I don't know what his suspicions are. But he's pulled Michael's file."

"And you can't mind-warp him?" Max asked, although he already knew the answer. If she had been able to mind-warp him, she would have done it by now, rather than call a meeting and have them discus their options. After all, it wasn't as though they really even had options at the moment.

"Not without running the risk of killing him," Tess replied softly. "He's already been mind-warped about this particular subject once, and since he's broken through that, doing another one that targets the same memories and emotions could cause serious brain damage or death." She knew he was a threat to their safety, but putting his life in danger was not an option for her. Unfortunately, she wasn't entirely sure what options they had left.

"Yeah, but if he dies then maybe we don't have to worry about Child Protection Services," Michael muttered under his breath, shooting a glare at Isabel. He had come to accept that the latest complication to his home life was not her fault, that whoever it was who had spoken to the Child Protection Services, it had not been Mr. or Mrs. Evans. But he still blamed her for it, merely because she was the easiest person to blame.

Isabel rolled her eyes at him, unfazed by his annoyance.

Tess slanted Michael a look, torn between her anger that he would even joke about Jim's death and her worry about what problems he had run into with the Child Protection Services.

Max noted the look on Tess' face and, interpreting it correctly, rebuked Michael, "That's not funny." Michael gave him a look that said plainly he hadn't meant for it to be funny, but Max ignored him. Turning to Tess, he said by way of explanation, "Michael's facing some problems, but we'll tell you later. Right now we need to figure out what to do about the Sheriff."

"Are we sure a mind-warp would put his health at risk?" Isabel asked.

Tess nodded with such finality that no one even bothered to press the issue.

"Well…" Isabel hesitated as she stared at Michael for a long time, then turned to Tess and said, "We could tell him the truth." She had played with the idea for a while now, and it seemed like a good suggestion in light of everything else that was happening. After all, did they really have much of a choice? If he was investigating Michael they could very well be running out of time.

Michael's eyes widened as he stared at Isabel in complete shock, then he gave a derisively snort and said, "That's just stupid."

Max switched his gaze from Isabel to Michael. He was silent, a curious expression on his face, as he thought about Isabel's suggestion. Finally, he glanced over at Tess and asked, "What would happen if we told him the truth?"

Tess, her eyebrows raising to her hairline, replied honestly, "I don't know."

"He'd stop the investigation," Isabel said, although she knew she had no possible way of knowing that. "He'd stop the investigation and maybe he'd be able to take care of Michael's situation."

"What is Michael's situation?" Tess demanded, worry making her tone harder than she had intended.

Instead of answering Tess' question, Michael turned to Max and said, "Valenti could just as easily turn us all over to the FBI. You can't seriously be thinking about taking that risk?" His voice was incredulous.

"He might not," Max murmured, twisting to look at Tess. "Tess is his daughter, he might…" He let the sentence drift off, thinking. Did he really have any reason to believe that Valenti wouldn't turn them over? Granted he obviously cared about Tess, but if he found out who… and what… his daughter really was…

"Then why haven't you told your parents what you are?" Michael asked, knowing Max and Isabel would have no defense for that question.

Sure enough, the two Evans lapsed into silence.

"Look," Tess said at last, breaking the uneasy silence, "I want to believe that Jim wouldn't betray us just as much as you want to believe that your parents would still love you even if they knew what you were. But we all know that that might not be the case. God only knows how people will react to the truth, and right now we can't risk more problems with Jim. Telling him is out of the question."

"I agree," Max decided at last, giving a nod to support her statement. "We don't know if we can trust him."

"Right," Tess continued, her sapphire eyes narrowing slightly, "and we shouldn't tell people the truth about who we are unless we know for certain we can trust them."

Max flushed slightly as he caught the implication of her statement and defended himself, "I knew I could trust Liz."

"How?" Tess demanded coldly.

Max sighed in frustration, "I thought we were over this issue, Tess."

Tess rolled her eyes and replied, "We're not over it, Max. We're never going to be over it because the consequences of what you did keep coming back to haunt us! We wouldn't be in this mess right now if you hadn't healed her."

"We don't know that," Max snapped back. But his face was slightly red, indicating that he did actually agree with her statement, most of this was his fault.

"Look," Isabel said softly but firmly, "we've all done stupid things, and Max isn't the only one responsible for the mess we are in right now." She gave Michael a look that said quite plainly she had not forgotten about his trip to Marathon, then continued, "Laying blame isn't going to help, we just need to find a way out of this."

"Fine," Tess gave in, albeit ungracefully. "So how do we stop Jim?" She gave Michael a hard stare and added, "In a way that doesn't involve killing him."

"I don't know," Max answered honestly.

"Great. That's helpful." Tess rolled her eyes and sat down on a rock next to Isabel. "So, we can't mind-warp him. We can't kill him. We can't tell him the truth. Where does that leave us?"

"We can do nothing," Max said thoughtfully. He glanced over at Michael and pointed out, "He might be investigating, but what if there is nothing to find? He'd have to stop eventually, right?"

"Max, if we thought doing nothing would save us we wouldn't be having this meeting," Isabel replied skeptically. She wished she could accept Max's idea, but it just didn't make sense at the moment. They were in too much danger to just pray that everything would be alright if they acted normal.

"Yeah, but does anyone have a better plan?" Max retorted. His question was met by complete silence from the other three. At last, he said, "Look, Isabel can keep an eye on his dreams, and Tess can watch him when he's awake. We can stay one step ahead of him in this investigation."

"Fine," Isabel relented, "but I still think we need to keep an open mind about telling Valenti the truth."

"So these are our two great plans?" Michael demanded. "Either do nothing or tell Valenti all our secrets? Well, that makes me feel better." His words were dripping with sarcasm as he stared hard at Max.

"Do you have a better idea?" Max repeated, and again Michael was unable to say anything. Instead he turned and looked at Isabel and Tess. Isabel didn't seem to mind the plan, but Tess, like Michael, was obviously annoyed that this was all they were going to do.

"There's always one other option," Michael said at last, bringing up the suggestion he knew Isabel and Max would shoot down instantly.

And sure enough…

"No!" Isabel said vehemently, before Michael had even had a chance to suggest it. "We are not leaving Roswell." Every so often, Michael would comment that they could always leave Roswell if things got too dangerous for them here. So far they had been able to avoid serious trouble, but now… Now he actually did have a point, but Isabel refused to hear it. This was her home, and she wasn't leaving.

"I agree with Isabel," Max replied softly.

"Fine," Michael snapped. "Let's just sit around and wait for the FBI to catch us. Great plan, Max!" And he got up and walked away from the others, making his way down the rocky incline towards the dirt road below.

Tess watched him go for a moment, then glanced over at Max and said, "This doesn't solve the problems, Max. Michael's right about that much. It might postpone the inevitable, but sooner or later we are going to have to discuss a different, more proactive, plan." And then she too left, walking towards her car.

"She's right," Isabel said heavily, slanting a look at Max. "It's only a matter of time before doing nothing stops working."

Max nodded slowly. "I know," he replied solemnly.

* * *

Maria pushed the door to her mother's hospital room open and stepped inside, her gaze wandering over the blinking machines that lined the far wall. The steady beat of her mother's heart flashed across the monitor next to Amy's bed and a long tube snaked its way down from an IV bag and attached to a needle placed in Amy's right hand.

"Hey," Amy murmured, opening her eyes and giving Maria a tired smile.

"Hi, Mom," Maria replied, taking a seat on the bed next to her mother. Amy lifted her hand and rested it on Maria's palm, and after a moment Maria interlocked her own fingers with her mother's a gave a wary smile.

"You never came back after your father came into the room," Amy said, her tone slightly questioning.

Maria flinched and looked away. "He's not my father," she said quickly, her words hard and cold.

Amy raised an eyebrow. "I know he hasn't been here for us, Maria, but…"

"No," Maria cut in firmly. She took a deep breath and stared her mother straight in the eye. "He isn't my father. I overheard you two talking before… I _know_."

For a moment, Amy could think of nothing to say. She stared up at her daughter, shock written all over her features. This was not how she wanted Maria to find out. Granted, she never wanted Maria to find out at all…

"Is that why you didn't come back?" Amy asked at last, her words catching slightly in her throat.

Maria gave the barest hint of a nod and said quietly, "I was… confused. I didn't know…" She blinked and looked away. "I just… I guess I didn't understand how you could lie to me like that?" She wanted her mother to have an answer, a justifiable answer, and at the same time, she wanted her mother to have no legitimate answer. She wanted to both hate and forgive her mother, and she didn't know which one would make her feel less hurt or less confused.

Amy reached up with one hand and place her fingers under Maria's chin, turning the girl's head so that she was staring straight into her eyes. "Maria, I love you. Nothing will ever change that. I need you to understand that."

"I know you do," Maria replied, an unnamed concern filling her stomach.

"And I never would have lied to you about this if I didn't think it was for the best," Amy continued, brushing a strand of hair out of Maria's eyes. Her hand pulled against the tubing connected to it, causing the IV bag to tug on its stand. Amy glanced at it, making sure it wouldn't fall, then lowered her hand and sighed.

"Mom?" Maria pressed. "What happened?"

Amy closed her eyes and started to talk, her voice filling the space between them. Maria averted her eyes from her mother's drawn face and stared about the room as she listened to the story.

"Sean and I had been married for about a year, and we were in love. Very, very, very deeply in love. But he traveled a lot for business. On our one-year anniversary, he had to go to Boston for a conference. So the two of us decided to go together, and after his meeting we were going to tour the city and get a few drinks at a bar. It wasn't the most romantic date, but, well… We thought it would be good enough."

"You hate Boston," Maria interrupted, her eyes now settling on Amy's body. She watched her mother's chest rise and fall with a steady rhythm and listened to the slight exhale of air before Amy answered the question.

"I do now. I didn't then. I actually liked it quite a bit. I spent the entire day in the different museums, and that night we went to see a show in the theater district. Then we went to a bar and had a few drinks. A few too many drinks, actually."

"You don't drink," Maria interrupted, yet again, her eyebrows coming together in confusion. She glanced at her mother's face, and saw that Amy's eyes were open, and fixed on Maria's face.

"I don't anymore," Amy agreed. She shook her head, wincing a little as a flash of pain traveled through her neck. "I don't remember much of what happened that night, but I got separated from Sean. I… A guy at the bar… we were talking and I didn't see… he… my drink… there was something… in it…" And this point Amy had to stop. Her eyes were filled with unshed tears and her voice cracked as she tried to form words.

Maria paled in horror as she realized what her mother was implying. "Oh, God…" she breathed.

Amy caught Maria's hand and squeezed it tightly. "This man, he was so friendly at first. And I was young, and naïve. I was from a tiny little desert town in the middle of nowhere and I didn't realize that someone as friendly as him could be a… a…" Again, she paused, unable to come up with the proper word for the man at the bar. Even after all these years, she had trouble saying the word.

Maria, however, did not have any trouble with it and supplied helpfully, "Rapist?"

Amy nodded. "Everything from that night is a haze, but I remember finally managing to find my way back to Sean after the… after _it_ had happened. We went back to the hotel, and I told him everything. I couldn't be around men at that point. I loved your fath-" She stopped herself, realizing she had been about to say 'father.' "I mean, I loved Sean, I truly did. But I couldn't… Like I said, I was young, naïve. And this had changed things so much for me and I couldn't… I couldn't bring myself to love a man right then. I was just too hurt and scared and… I told Sean I needed some time from him. A break. He said he understood, and he stayed on the East Coast when I flew back to Roswell. I think we had always assumed we would end up together eventually, but it just… we grew apart. I needed time to come to grips with what had happened, and the person I became during that time…Besides, Sean was impatient to come back to me. In that first year that we were apart, we had so many fights about it on the phone. He wanted to move back into the house, and he was so annoyed that I just wasn't ready for that. I wasn't ready for any form of a relationship, let alone was as intimate as marriage. Perhaps it was my fault, perhaps I asked too much of him. But after a while, we just… I guess we both accepted that we weren't going to get back together, but then neither of us were really willing to completely let go. That year we were together before everything happened… that year I thought he was my soul mate."

"Did the police ever catch that man at the bar?" Maria asked.

Amy gave a bitter laugh. "I was too out of it to be able to identify him. I couldn't even tell his hair color." She sighed. "No, they didn't get him."

A hot rush of rage raced through Maria's veins but she merely nodded and asked, "But if you couldn't be…um…intimate with men after that incident, who is my father?"

Amy closed her eyes again. "Maria, Sean and I had been trying to get pregnant for the entire year, and we couldn't. And then, about two weeks after the incident at the bar, I found out that I was pregnant…" She stared at Maria, waiting for her daughter to understand what she was applying.

The moment realization dawned on Maria, she yanked her hand away from her mother and jumped to her feet. "With me…?" she managed to gasp out, her body shaking with fear.

Amy bit her lip and whispered, "Yes."

"Oh," Maria commented. "I see…" She looked around wildly, as though hoping something in the room would contradict her mother's story. All she saw were the whitewashed walls and the sanitized row of gloves and medications lined up against the far wall. She couldn't bring herself to look at her mother.

"Maria…"

"I have to go," Maria said distractedly, her mind racing as she thought over everything her mother had just said.

"No, Maria…"

"Homecoming. I have to… Alex and I… Homecoming," Maria babbled. She was the reason her mother and Sean had fallen apart. She was what had come of her mother's rape. She was… she was the one who had caused all of this. If she had never existed then this wouldn't have… how could her mother love her? How could her mother look at her and not see the man who had done this to her, the man who had ruined everything?

"Maria, I love you. Maria, please, look at me. Maria!"

Maria backed away to the door. "I have to go," she whispered, shoving the door open and stepping out into the hallway, her vision blinded by tears.

"_Maria_!"

Maria let the door swing shut, blocking out her mother's voice. Then she turned around, and ran.

* * *

"You look…" Max swallowed and shook his head, unable to figure out the right words to describe exactly how Liz looked. She was wearing a deep blue dress, and her hair was curled and pulled up into a bun. A few loose ringlets fell around her face, framing her glowing smile.

"Thank you," she said softly.

Max extended his arm to her, and she looped her own arm through his. The two walked out to the car together. Overhead, the inky night sky was filled with tiny white stars, points of light that glimmered in the darkness.

"How did your meeting with the other Czechoslovakians go?" Liz enquired as Max held open the door for her. She slipped into the seat and looked up at him in time to see the flash of concern that flooded his features before fading away. "Max?" she pressed.

Max gave a noncommittal shrug and replied, "It's complicated, I guess."

"Is there anything we can do?" Liz questioned as she slipped her seatbelt on.

"Not really." Max walked around to the other side of the car and let himself into the driver's seat. "At this point we're just trying to act normal." He put the keys in the ignition and turned the car on. "It should be a fun night," he remarked with a slightly apprehensive smile.

Liz nodded, thinking of Maria, Alex, Isabel, and Michael. How had they managed to tangle themselves into such a mess? "Yes," she agreed hesitantly. "Very fun."

"I told Michael and Isabel I would pick them up. They're both back at my house. Are Maria and Alex meeting us at The Cheesecake Factory?" After a long time spent debating the merits of different restaurants, they had finally decided on The Cheesecake Factory for the night. The chain restaurant had opened a new branch on Main Street, nestled in between a few of the more trendy boutiques and shops.

"I think so," Liz replied. "I was supposed to talk to Maria this afternoon, but she didn't call, and she didn't answer her cell phone." She was slightly worried, knowing that Maria had been planning on speaking to Amy after school. But as she had no way of reaching Maria, she had no choice but to wait until her friend called her.

Max shifted lanes, glancing over his shoulder. "Did something happen?"

"I'm not sure," Liz answered honestly, chewing on her bottom lip thoughtfully. "I think if anything huge had happened, she would have called us."

Max nodded and changed the subject. "Isabel's been a nightmare, preparing for this dance. Everything has to be perfect, she must have spent an hour on her hair."

"That's not that long," Liz objected. It had taken a while for her to get her bun right.

Max laughed. "Yeah, if you are going about things the normal way. But when you can change you hairstyle with a wave of your hands, an hour is a long time. I think she wanted to try every possible style just to make sure she had the right one."

Liz laughed at that, although she was slightly jealous that Isabel could so easily style her hair and do her makeup.

"Michael, of course, showed up in jeans and a polo shirt, and Isabel was _not_ pleased about that." Max grinned slightly as he remembered Isabel's outrage at Michael's choice of outfit. "I think she convinced him to at least change into khakis, but I'm not sure. They were still in the middle of that argument when I left."

Liz glanced at her reflection in the side window. She honestly never really understood why Maria was so drawn to Michael. Of course, she also couldn't really explain why she was so drawn to Max, so she assumed that it was just one of those inexplicable things.

Max pulled up in front of his house and parked the car. "I'll be right back," he said quickly, jumping out of the car and heading up towards the house door. Before he could reach it, however, it swung open to reveal a smiling Isabel and a slightly grumpy looking Michael. Sure enough, she had convinced him to change into khakis.

Isabel was wearing a crimson dress that stopped just below the knees, and hugged every curve. Her loose hair tumbled over her shoulders in a mass of messy waves. She looked stunning.

"Ready to go?" Max asked with a concerned glance at his sister's dress. Although he would never actually tell her this. he was slightly disconcerted by her appearance. Looking the way she did, she was bound to get unwanted attention, and Max's protective instincts were flaring up instantly.

"Yes," Isabel said with a smile, stepping past Max and walking towards the car.

Michael smirked at the look on Max's face and whispered, "What's the matter? Don't like the idea of Izzy dating?"

"Of course not," Max hissed, flushing. "She can do whatever she wants."

"So you wouldn't mind if I…?" He let the sentence drift off, giving Max a wholly untrustworthy grin. Max stiffened at the implications of the statement, and glared at Michael, but said nothing.

Michael just grinned.

* * *

"Tess? Tess! Come on! By the time you are ready, Chris and Pam will have died of boredom," Kyle called through the bedroom door that was currently separating him from the blonde Ice Queen.

"Hold your horses," Tess' voice called back, and Kyle groaned in frustration, leaning back against the wall, and resigning himself to another hour of waiting.

In the living room, Pam gave Chris a smile and said, "So… you and Tess? Is this just a one time date or are you actually going out?"

Chris shrugged and replied honestly, "I don't know." He ran a hand through his hair and eyed Pam's outfit. Her hot pink dress ended above the knee, and had a plunging neckline. She was wearing white eye shadow and bubblegum pink lipstick, and her mouth was curved into a gloating smirk.

Chris wondered why she seemed so pleased. As a guy, he reflected that he really didn't know that much about how girl's minds worked, but the fact that Kyle had asked Pam Troy to Homecoming was supposed to be some big… something.

"Did you ask her out?" Pam pressed. Any information about the popular clique was good fodder for the gossip mills at school.

"No," Chris replied, shifting in his seat and feeling more and more uncomfortable by the moment. "I haven't yet."

"Yet? Then you are planning on it?" That would be good gossip, especially if the news was spread before he actually worked up the nerve to ask Tess out.

Something about the way Pam looked at him, the cat-who-caught-the-canary look in her eyes, the tone of the question… Chris was put instantly on edge.

"What about you and Kyle? Is this just a one time thing, or are you two a couple?" Chris asked. He had absolutely no interest in the subject whatsoever, but felt the unexplained desire to switch the subject.

"Oh, I don't know…" Pam flashed a brief smile and said in a conspiratorial whisper, "We haven't talked about it." She shot a look over her shoulder at the hallway where Kyle was impatiently waiting for Tess, and murmured, "Just between you and me, though, I think this might last a bit longer than just tonight."

"Finally!"

Both Pam and Chris stood up and turned to face Kyle as they heard his relieved exclamation. Then Tess walked into the room, smiling at them. Her sapphire dress matched her eyes perfectly, and her blonde curls were arranged in an elaborate up-do. She walked over to Chris and looked at his dark black slacks and blue shirt.

"Classy," she said. "I like it."

"Thanks," Chris laughed. "You look amazing."

"Thank you," Tess replied. She turned to Pam, her eyes traveling up and down the other girl's dress. "You look… nice, Pam."

If Pam caught the hint of sarcasm in Tess' voice, she said nothing about it. Instead she linked arms with Kyle and merely smiled back, "Thank you. You look nice also."

Tess sighed and wondered idly what Trudy was going to say to all this.

* * *

Alex held open the door for Maria and helped her out of the car. It had been difficult to find a parking space, and they would have to walk a few blacks to the restaurant, but he didn't mind. It gave him a few extra moments to ponder over what exactly he was getting himself into.

Maria had been exceptionally quiet since he had picked her up. She looked nice enough, but it was clear she had not spent as much time on her appearance as most girls did before a dance. She was wearing a simple green dress and her hair fell around her face. She had dabbed on some lipstick and some mascara, but no other makeup.

She was distracted as well, constantly stopping in the middle of her sentences and staring off into space. Alex had pressed her several times for an explanation, but each time she had insisted that she was fine, just a little tired. The last time he had asked, she had snapped at him, so he had wisely decided to wait until he had a chance to speak to Liz before attempting to bring up the issue again.

Maria gave Alex a vacant smile and said vaguely, "Thanks." Then she lapsed back into her distracted silence, and Alex sighed in frustration.

They walked towards the restaurant together, their hands linked. It was a busy night, all of the restaurants in the area were hosting groups of students dressed up for the dance. Alex caught sight of Tess and Trudy talking about something on the other side of the street, then noticed Pam Troy draped over a bored looking Kyle. Thankfully, he noted, they were heading towards a different restaurant, so he would not be forced to watch that drama unfold.

After all, Alex mused to himself, they would most likely have enough drama of their own tonight.

When he had been informed by an irate Maria that Michael and Isabel were going together, he had felt a mix of surprise, anger, resentment, and apprehension. Although the surprise had faded away and he had realized he really should have seen something like this coming, the anger and apprehension were still there. In fact, they had grown tremendously, and he was expecting quite the escalation of problems tonight.

Or, at least, he would have been expecting that if Maria had not been quite so unnaturally quiet. He glanced up at the dark night sky and frowned, wondering yet again what was wrong with his friend.

Liz was the first to spot them when they entered the crowded restaurant, and she jumped to her feet and hurried over. Alex gave her a brief smile and commented that she looked nice, and she blushed and replied, "Thank you." Turning to Maria, she gave her friend and searching look, but Maria refused to meet her gaze.

"Um… you know, I'm going to… go away," Alex said, trying and failing to come up with a legitimate reason why he should leave the two girls alone. He slipped away into the throng of students, intent on stopping Max or Michael from joining Liz and Maria so that the two girls would have a chance to talk.

Liz watched Alex go, gratified by his departure, then looked around the crowded restaurant. "I hear they have really good cheesecake," she said.

Maria rolled her eyes. "Well, it is called The _Cheesecake_ Factory. One would expect it to serve good cheesecake," she pointed out.

"Right…" Liz ndded, struggling for another subject to talk about. "You look amazing."

"I'm wearing an old green dress," Maria retorted. "I look like I spent ten minutes on my appearance."

"Well, I think it looks great," Liz replied staunchly.

Maria sighed. "I don't want to talk about it, Liz."

"Your dress?" Liz asked, confused. Why wouldn't Maria want to talk about her dress?

"No. About my mother." Liz gave her an innocent look at Maria gave a dark chuckle. "You didn't come over here to talk to me about my dress of cheesecake. You wanted to talk about my mother and the conversation I had with her." She shrugged and said with finality, "I don't want to talk about it."

"Is everything okay?" Liz asked.

Maria swallowed and wondered how she was supposed to answer that question.

* * *

Alex stared hard at Isabel. He had been talking to Max about nothing in particular when Isabel had extracted herself from the conversation she had been having with Michael and had wandered over to them. They were still waiting for a table, Maria and Liz were still talking in hushed tones by the door, and Alex stared at Isabel.

"You look… wow," Alex managed to gasp out, then cursed himself inwardly for the stupidity of the comment. "I mean, you look very nice," he managed at last, giving a polite smile.

Isabel tossed her blonde hair over one shoulder and flashed a brilliant smile that lit up her entire face. "Thank you," she said in a soft voice. "You look very nice yourself."

"Thanks," Alex replied with a nod. He glanced around the room and noticed that several boys were staring at Isabel as though they had never seen her before. Jealousy welled up inside him, but he pushed it away, reminding himself that she was not his date and he had no right to be jealous.

Isabel watched him as he looked around, knowing that he was noticing all the guys checking her out. She smiled to herself, pleased.

Michael took that moment to appear, draping his arm over Isabel's shoulder and saying, "Oh, hi Alex."

Isabel gave Michael a light smile and said to Max, "What happened to Liz and Maria?"

"They're over there," Max replied, twisting around to point to his girlfriend and her best friend. "Over by the windows."

"Mr. Evans?" a waiter asked, materializing out of the crowd and approaching Max. "Your table is ready."

"Thank you," Max replied. He turned and glanced over at Liz, nodded and lead a taciturn Maria towards the others.

As Maria approached, her eyes fell on Michael's arm, still draped over Isabel's shoulder, and she paused, startled. Then she gave Michael a bright smile and walked past them, following Alex through the throng. Michael, Max, and Isabel all followed Maria, and Liz hesitated for a moment, watching her friends, before hurrying after them.

With a sinking feeling, she realized this was going to be an eventful night.

* * *

Next Chapter: Every Wrong Move

Due: Sun 8/27

Author's note: Okay, so I didn't get to the dance itself. I thought I would, but then this chapter ended up much longer than I had anticipated, and if I had tried to include the dance in this part, I wouldn't have finished before next week. But I promise that the dance is coming next time.


	42. Every Wrong Move

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: So we are back to the 'new section' headers to seperate parts of the chapter (why can't FFN fix the ruler bar?). As always, please read and review.

_begin chapter_

Chapter Forty-One: Every Wrong Move

Mr. Collins knocked on the door of the trailer and glanced around the neighborhood in distaste. If he had his way, no foster child would ever be sent to a family living in a trailer park, and certainly not a trailer park as littered with empty beer bottles as this one.

The door swung open to reveal a confused Hank Guerin. He stared at Mr. Collins for a moment, taking in the dark suit and the briefcase, and said at last, "Not interested in buyin' nuthin'."

"I'm not selling," Mr. Collins replied briskly. "My name is Mr. Collins and I am from Child Protection Services. I am here about Michael, Mr. Guerin."

"Good for nuthin' boy gettin' himself in trouble, is he?" Hank asked, shaking his head in disgust.

Mr. Collins barely managed to conceal the brief look of contempt that washed over his features before he said, "No, Mr. Guerin, it is not Michael who is in trouble this time." He extended a manila folder to the other man and explained, "We believe that it may be in his best interests to be removed to a different foster home?"

"He been complaining?" Hank demanded, instantly enraged. "I put a house over 'is head and clothes on 'is back and he been complaining 'bout me?"

"Actually, no, he hasn't," Mr. Collins replied in what he hoped was a stern voice. "Although perhaps he should have. No, we have decided to remove him on our own accord. There will be a trial…"

"Trial? I ain't broken no laws," Hank defended himself quickly. "Ain't done nuthin' wrong."

"In the case of possible neglect or abuse of a foster child, it is necessary that the foster parent and child are brought to court before the proceedings can be fully dealt with. The judge will inquire into the situation and…"

Hank caught little of the meaning of Mr. Collins words, the social workers tone was pompous and slightly arrogant. But he did manage to understand the words 'neglect' and 'abuse' and replied in a fiery rage, "I ain't been abusive or neglectful!"

"Mr. Guerin, that is for the judge to decide. You will present yourself at court on the date listed in the envelope." Mr. Collins glanced at Hanks ratty attire, the worn jeans with the holes and the dirty off-white T-shirt. "And you will dress in a more respectable fashion. We will continue this discussion then." And he turned away, making his way down the steps, and leaving a fuming Hank to standing at the door, staring at him in anger and disbelief.

_new section _

"I still love you, you know," Amy said softly.

"We've been apart for so long," Sean replied. "How do you know if I am even the same person you loved before?" He was pacing the room, as though full of nervous energy. He paused every now and then to stare at Amy, and there was still something about his eyes that didn't quite sit right with her.

"Do you love me?" Amy asked.

"I don't know," Sean answered. "I am still in love with the woman I met all those years ago. But I don't… I don't know you anymore." He looked away then said in a hurt tone, "You started a relationship with the Sheriff."

"I thought you weren't going to come back," Amy rejoined. "You hadn't, and it has been sixteen years. I assumed you didn't want to come back. I was trying to move on."

"Without a divorce?" Sean asked.

"But I started to file for divorce," Amy replied with a frown. "My lawyer said he had contacted you about it just a week before the accident."

Sean nodded, seeming to be slightly flustered. After a moment of hesitation, he said, "Yes, he did. I meant that you had started a relationship with the Sheriff before the divorce."

"I wanted to see if I truly could move on," Amy explained. "I wanted to see… I wanted to see if I could love someone else besides you."

"And can you?" Sean asked.

"I don't know," Amy answered honestly. "I love Jim, and I love you." She turned her head to the side and closed her eyes. "I thought you were never coming back," she murmured again. And she had thought that. She had assumed that the man she had once loved so much had finally given up on them. She had convinced herself that she was happy with Jim, and she had started the process for divorce. She had it all planned out; she would officially tell everyone that she and Jim were dating on the same day that she finalized her divorce. Of course, that had been the plan before the accident had changed everything, and there secret dating had been thrown completely into the open.

Sean was looking at her, and his eyes…

She didn't know what it was about them, but something…

She closed her eyes again and pushed away the thought. She was making this all up. She hadn't seen the man in sixteen years, of course he wouldn't look exactly like she remembered.

Then why couldn't she quite let go of this doubt?

On an impulse, she said, "I told Maria the truth today. She was very upset, but at least I was able to reassure her that the police caught the man who did this to me… to us."

"Yes, that was a relief," Sean agreed as he resumed his pacing. He was not facing Amy, so he did not see the surprise and suspicion that leapt into her eyes at his comment.

_new section _

"How's your salad?" Alex asked Maria politely, forcing conversation in the strained silence.

"Fine," Maria replied. She lapsed into silence after her monosyllabic answer and stared moodily at the lettuce on her plate. Liz gave her a concerned stare and opened her mouth to say something, but seemed to think better of it. Maria stabbed her salad with her fork and slanted a look from behind half-closed lids at Michael. Michael was ignoring her, or at least trying to, and his eyes were averted.

"I wonder what kind of music they'll play at the dance?" Max asked, directing his question at Liz.

"Um… hopefully something we can dance to," Liz replied, giving Max a grateful smile. She could tell he had no desire to discuss music, and was simply trying to break the awkward silence. "But I suppose it depends on the DJ."

"Well, we can always request music if we don't like what they are playing," Alex said, jumping into the conversation. "What kind of music do you like?" he asked Isabel.

Isabel started, surprised that the question had been meant for her, and tore her eyes away from the other tables around her. She had been watching all of the guys check her out, and was somewhat annoyed to be drawn back into the awkward conversation.

"Any kind," she said with a shrug.

"That's a very pretty dress," Liz complimented Isabel, wanting to keep the conversation moving. "Where did you get it?"

"Oh, at a little boutique store that just opened last month," Isabel replied airily.

"Well, it is very flattering. The color looks nice on you," Liz said sincerely.

"Yes, it does," Michael agreed, turning his attention to Isabel and smiling at her.

Maria glared at Isabel and Michael and looked back at her salad.

"I like your dress also," Alex said quickly, seeing the angry look on Maria's face. "It's very pretty. Where did you get it?"

Maria rolled her eyes. "I've had it for a while," she said simply.

"Well, it looks great," Alex said again. "Don't you think so, Liz?"

"Oh, yes, of course…" Liz replied distractedly. She was staring at Max, who was frowning at Michael, who was studiously avoiding everyone's gaze.

"How's your mother?" Max asked Maria. Next to him, Liz's eyebrows rose as she scrutinized Maria, waiting for her reply. Maria glanced up at him quickly, then her gaze slid sideways to Liz, and she looked back down at her hands.

"She's fine," the blonde human replied. She stood up abruptly and said, "I'm going to go use the ladies' room. I'll be right back." And she excused herself from the table, picking her way through the mass of students.

Michael lifted his spoon and hit it idly against his water glass, listening to the high-pitched ping that resounded upon impact. He continued this until Isabel shot him a glare, then he dropped the spoon and stood up. "I'll be back," he muttered in bad humor and stalked away.

He wandered around the restaurant for a bit until he found himself standing in the back near the line for the men's room. He leaned against the wall and wondered vaguely how long he could stand here avoiding everyone before they realized that he hadn't returned and started to look for him.

The door on the left swung open, and Maria stepped out. She paused mid-step, surprised to see him, then asked icily, "What are you doing here? Where's _Isabel_?"

"She's at the table," Michael retorted. "I was just walking. Stretching my legs."

Maria stared at him for a long moment, as though trying to determine whether or not he was telling the truth. Then she shrugged and said, "Fine, whatever. I'll see you back at the table." And she stepped past him.

Without even thinking, Michael turned and caught her arm as she brushed past. She froze, and turned to look at him, and he dropped her arm as though he had been burned, and stepped back in surprise.

"What?" Maria demanded, her tone hostile.

"I just…" Michael was suddenly speechless, not entirely sure why he had stopped her in the first place. "I just wanted to know how you were doing," he said at last.

"How I am doing?" she mimicked viciously. "How do you think I am doing?"

Michael stared at her with an unreadable expression, then said coldly, "I was just asking. Don't know why I bother, though, since you clearly don't appreciate it." And he turned away.

Maria opened her mouth, wanting to say something, then shut it in frustration. She gave Michael's back one last look before she turned, and made her way back to the table.

_new section _

Tess stood next to Chris in the school gym and eyed the decorations. Streamers hung from the ceiling and decorated the walls. A black light flooded the room, making the white walls glow. The music was loud enough to dance to, but not so loud that it hurt the eardrums and left everyone deaf the next morning. And the place was packed with gossiping, laughing, and dancing students.

It would have been a great night if Trudy hadn't practically been in tears by the end of dinner. And Jason looked about ready to pummel Kyle. Kyle appeared to be supremely pleased with himself, and Tess reflected that if his goal had been to get back at Trudy for going to the dance with Jason, Kyle _had_ done an exceptionally good job. Pam had been a brilliant choice of date because she basically draped herself over Kyle's arm and laughed a little too loud at everything he said, regardless of whether or not it was actually funny.

Tess decided that Pam Troy was going to get written down on her list of people that she hated.

Somehow, by the time they had reached the dance, everyone at the school seemed to think that Chris was going to ask her to be his girlfriend. She could hear the whispers and the smirks sent in her direction. Chris seemed to be embarrassed by the whole thing, and she wondered whether or not he had been planning on asking her out. He could barely look at her now, and it was making it difficult to enjoy the evening when he wouldn't even talk to her without breaking into a stutter.

He had confided to her that Pam had asked him earlier that evening if he was going to ask her out, and he hadn't said yes, but then, he hadn't said no either.

So Tess was fairly certain she knew where the rumors were coming from, and Pam Troy was _definitely_ going to get written down on her list of people that she hated.

In the far corner of the gym, she spotted Max and Liz. They were dancing. Her arms were wrapped around his shoulders, and his hands were resting on her waste. They were swaying back and forth to a slow and steady rhythm.

The music was not slow dance music.

Tess wondered if they were even aware of the music and the people, or were the too caught up in their own world to notice anything else?

Michael, Isabel, Maria, and Alex all stood a little ways away from Liz and Max. Maria looked bored, and kept running her hand through her hair, letting the silky strands fall between her fingers as her gaze wandered around the room. Michael also seemed bored, but that was really no surprise, he never did like school events. Alex kept trying to engage Maria in conversation, but she was pretty much ignoring him. And Isabel…

Isabel had caught the eye of almost every male student at the school. She was currently sending flirtatious smiles at two guys who were standing across the gym from her. Tess squinted at the guys and determined that they were both members of the football team, although not close friends of Kyle's, so she didn't know then that well.

Every now and then Isabel would turn and look at Alex, but he was always looking at Maria, and that seemed to annoy Isabel immensely.

Tess sighed and turned back to Chris. He was smiling at her, a bright smile that seemed slightly nervous, and she said on impulse, "Want to dance?"

"Sure," he replied with a relieved look, and the two walked out towards the dance floor.

_new section _

Pam tossed her hair over one shoulder and stared across the dance floor at Isabel Evans. She could tell quite easily that the girl was trying to make Alex Whitman jealous, and Alex was not taking the bait. But several other guys seemed to appreciate Isabel's beauty, in fact, most of the make contingent of the school couldn't keep their eyes off of her.

She turned and looked for Tess. She spotted the blonde on the dance floor with Chris, and bit her lip in indecision. Tess probably wouldn't like what she was about to do, but as long as Tess was occupied with someone else…

"Kyle? I'll be right back," Pam murmured before pushing her way through the crowd. She approached Isabel from behind, slipping unnoticed until she stood next to the other girl.

"Isabel! What a fabulous dress!"

Isabel turned, startled. "Oh… um, thank you, Pam," she said hesitantly, clearly surprised. She had never exchanged pleasantries with Pam outside of the obligatory hello or nod if they ran into each other. For Pam to seek her out and compliment her on her dress was quite startling.

"Where did you get it?" Pam asked, beaming as she slid her hand around Isabel's arm and guided the other girl against her will towards Kyle.

"A boutique shop," Isabel replied. She and Pam had stopped in front of Kyle, and Isabel blinked and glanced at the smaller girl. She could tell that she was somehow being manipulated into something, and whatever it was, it was certainly going to be to Pam's benefit. But she had yet to figure out what Pam was doing, and a feeling of dread grew in her stomach as she took in Pam's already gloating expression.

Max and Liz had stopped dancing to watch the scene unfold. Across the room, Tess and Chris had stopped as well, and Tess was making her way back through the crowd, hurrying towards Kyle.

"Kyle, don't you just love Isabel's dress?" Pam gushed. Kyle nodded, flustered, and Pam continued, "She has such good taste in clothes. We must go shopping some time, Isabel." The last comment was directed back at Isabel, but the statuesque alien was hardly paying attention to Pam's words.

"Tess, you should join us also," Pam continued with a smirk. "Don't you think so, Kyle?" she turned back to Kyle and prevailed on him. The question was absurd, what would Kyle know about fashion or girl's clothing? How could he possibly be able to advise Tess on who she should shop with?

But Pam knew what she was doing, and she continued breezily, turning to Tess, "I mean, I know you and Trudy go shopping a lot… and you have wonderful clothes…" She paused just long enough to catch Kyle's eye and jerk her head slightly to the side so that he followed her movement and caught sight of Trudy watching the exchange… with Jason's arms wrapped around her. Then Pam hurried on smoothly, "…but don't you just _adore_ Isabel's dress?"

"It is very nice," Kyle said with feeling. "You look amazing, Isabel." He barely glanced at Trudy as he continued, "You and Tess really should go shopping, you'd be better at picking out flattering clothes than some of her other friends…"

"Oh, that is so true," Pam agreed, leaning against Kyle. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and glared defiantly at Tess as though daring her to take Trudy's side.

Tess hesitated, glancing from Trudy to Pam, then sparing Isabel a appraising look. Pam was the type of girl who loved to start trouble because then she was always the first to have the gossip. It was as though her very existence depended on knowing all the juicy details of the latest high school drama. Tess supposed that every high school had people like that, but Pam was the worst of the type.

There was really only one answer that Tess could give that would not alienate either Trudy or Kyle, and she refused to be put in the middle of this argument. However, the answer that she was forced to give would cause enough issues on its own, and she really, really did not want to be the one to suggest this.

But she had no choice, so she plastered her largest fake smile onto her face and said to Pam, "You know, it would be fun if we all went shopping together. Trudy, Sara, Jessica, you, Isabel, and I. Wouldn't it?"

All eyes turned to Isabel, waiting for her to say something. She stared incredulsouly at Tess, trying to understand what had just happened. Had Tess actually just asked her to go shopping with the popular clique?

She wouldn't flatter herself, she knew exactly why she was being invited and it certainly wasn't because Tess wanted to invite her. But she _was_ being invited, and shouldn't she make the best of that opportunity?

As though reading her thoughts, Pam leaned in and purred in a tone audible only to Isabel, "Bet the guys will take even more notice of you then. And maybe that certain guy will as well?" She flashed a knowing smile and let her gaze fall on Alex for a moment.

Isabel looked over her shoulder. She saw Michael and Max both glaring at her, silently warning her to back out now. She saw Maria's dumbfounded expression, she was just as surprised by what had happened as every one else was. And then she looked at Alex, who was regarding her in unmistakable jealousy.

"I'd love to!" she said brightly, swinging around to look at Tess. "How about later next week? I know some great places we can go."

"Wonderful," Tess said icily. She gave Pam one last indecipherable stare, then turned and stalked away, Chris following her. Trudy and Jason drifted away as well, and Kyle noted with smug satisfaction that Trudy was almost in tears. Again. Isabel walked back to Alex and Maria and promptly ignored then, continuing to smile at all the guys around her. Max and Michael starting talking quietly, and Liz hurried over to Maria and Alex to see how they were taking what had just happened.

"Would you like to dance?" Pam asked smugly. Kyle nodded, and the two of them wandered over to the dance floor. As she swayed back and forth, Pam reflected that she had managed to further destroy Kyle and Trudy's friendship, had effectively introduced Isabel into the popular clique, and had even managed to force Tess into not only accepting Isabel, but actually being the one to extend the invitation.

She looked up at Kyle, and smiled softly to herself.

_new section _

"Well, it looks like Isabel's ditched you for a different crowd," Maria commented as she ladled herself a glass of punch and took a sip.

Michael stared at her, then glanced over his shoulder at Isabel, who was smiling and chatting animatedly with some jock Michael recognized but couldn't identify. Alex was watching her every move.

"And I take it Alex ditched you to gawk at Isabel?" Michael asked dryly.

"He didn't ditch me, I left him," Maria contradicted. That was closer to the truth anyways. She had left after several minutes of watching him stare at Isabel, realizing that she wasn't going to get his attention back.

"Well, I'm sure he'll remember you around the time he's planning on leaving. You know, so you get a ride home," Michael commented.

Maria frowned, wondering whether or not that was supposed to be sympathetic. Was he mocking her or commiserating with her? She really had no idea.

"What about you? How are you getting home?" Maria asked.

Michael shrugged. "Max," he replied simply, as though it was the obvious answer.

"Well, I'm sure Max is thrilled about having you as a third wheel," Maria snickered, imagining Max and Liz trying to make out in the back of Max's car while Michael sat in the front seat and tapped his fingers impatiently on the dashboard.

Michael stiffened. "Not all of us can afford cars," he snapped.

Maria flushed and looked away. "I didn't mean…" she paused, trying to put into words what exactly it was she didn't mean. Partially she was annoyed that he had managed to make her feel guilty when she was the one harboring the dark secret and she was the one who was supposed to be upset and misunderstood. Not him. The other part of her was angry that she could even think that, because it wasn't his fault he didn't have a car.

"Forget it," Michael said coldly, and an awkward silence fell over the two of them.

Maria took another sip of punch and glanced around the gym. Kyle and Tess were arguing about something, and, judging from Tess' angry gestures towards Pam, Maria was fairly certain she knew exactly what that argument was about. Max and Liz were still dancing, and Alex was still staring at Isabel, who was ignoring him.

"So, you want to tell me what's wrong?" Michael ventured at last.

"Nothing." Maria looked away, her thoughts rapidly traveling back to the conversation with her mother. She had been on an emotional rollercoaster ride since then, spiraling between fury, pain, and indifference in rapid succession.

"Really?" Michael asked skeptically. Maria just stared at him, and he shrugged. "Fine, whatever," he said unemotionally.

Maria's temper snapped, and before she realized what she was saying, she had started hissing at him in a low whisper, "What gives you the right to take that tone with me? Like you ever talk about your problems with any of us!"

"If by 'us' you mean you, Liz, and Alex, then of course not," Michael ground out.

"And you get mad at me when I don't tell you what my Mom told me?" Maria demanded. "How hypocritical _are_ you?"

"What did your mother tell you?" Michael asked curiously. He lowered his voice and glanced around to make sure they weren't overheard. "Was it about Sean not being your father?"

Maria stopped, her mouth partially open, as she realized what she had just revealed. "No," she lied, looking away slowly. "It wasn't anything important."

"Yeah, of course not," Michael snapped. "This is just another one of those things I have no understanding of, right? What is it now? You're mother didn't want you? She would have rather let you take care of yourself while she spent every day and every evening watching television and getting drunk?"

"What do you think this is all about you?" Maria demanded, her voice rising slightly. Her breath was coming in short gasps as she fought the fury that ran through her. "Like you are the only one in the world… the universe… who has gone through real pain? You have no idea what my mother said or what I am dealing with and it isn't…"

Michael leaned over and kissed her, abruptly cutting off her rant. For a moment, he stayed there, his mouth pressed against her lips, even after the kiss had ended. Then he pulled back and looked down at her.

"Wh-what?" Maria managed to gasp.

"It was to shut you up," Michael explained, before turning and walking away, leaving Maria to just stare at him in complete shock.

_new section _

Max yanked the covers from his bed and climbed in between the sheets. The night had ended well. He and Liz had been so wrapped up in each other they had barely even noticed as the time flew by. Maria had seemed in a more cheerful mood at the end of the dance, which had made Liz incredibly happy. Michael had barely spoken more than two words on the entire ride home from the dance, and although Michael was hardly a talkative person, it was unusual for him to be that silent. His reticence had disturbed Max slightly, as had Isabel's sudden addition to Tess and Kyle's group, and Alex had been moody after having spending the entire evening watching Isabel flirt with other guys.

So maybe it hadn't been all wonderful.

But he thought he was in love. He wasn't really sure about that, he had never been in love before, and therefore had nothing to compare it to. It wasn't the way he thought it would be. It wasn't this magical feeling or this instant connection, although sometimes he thought he felt some of that. It was just how…comfortable… he felt with Liz.

He closed his eyes and dreamt of dancing with Liz.

In the room next to his, Isabel crawled into bed and stared up at the ceiling, wondering what exactly it was she was getting herself into, and whether or not she should back out now. She found it slightly amusing that she was so afraid of connecting herself with the popular clique, with Tess. They faced the danger every day, danger that could lead to a lot more than just a few unpleasant conversations and being mocked. Shouldn't she be braver than this?

But it was more than just switching friends or making Alex jealous. It was… she couldn't quite explain it, but it was as though somehow something else was changing. For ten years, they had lead this semi-peaceful existence within set boundaries and circles. Max healing Liz had been the first great leap over that boundary, but now she felt that maybe, in some small way, she was doing the same. Granted she was not endangering any of their lives, but it was the same sort of break from what they had been before.

It scared her.

Tess, meanwhile, sat in bed and thought up a thousand ways to ruin Pam Troy's life. With her mind-warping ability, she had many options on how to go about doing this. Of course, she would never be able to do any of them, because she had enough common sense not to needlessly mind-warp someone, but she figured it couldn't hurt to dream, right?

Max was reaching to turn off his bedroom lights, Isabel was pulling the covers up to her chin, and Tess was pulling her hair back into a loose bun, when all three of them froze in silent horror, somehow knowing that something was terribly wrong.

On the other side of the town, a very drunk, very violent Hank Guerin shoved open the door to Michael's bedroom and snarled, "You been tellin' them social workers lies 'bout me, boy? You'll have hell to pay for that!"

_end chapter_

Next Chapter: The Morning After

Due: Sun 9/3


	43. The Morning After

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Italics are dreams. I suppose I should give a abuse and violence warning for this chapter. Nothing specific or graphic, but it alludes to child abuse. This is also a serious subject, and if you should no anyone in _any _kind of abusive relationship (abusive parents, abusive significant others, etc...) alert the police, Child Protection Services, or the person's family immidiately.

* * *

Chapter Forty-Two: The Morning After

Maria washed the make-up from her face and pulled her hair into a bun. She had changed out of her green dress and into her pajamas, and the dress had been carelessly discarded onto her desk chair. The bright light of the bathroom illuminated the dark circles under her eyes, but despite the exhaustion, she was smiling.

She and Michael had kissed. Well, actually, he had kissed her. And then he had acted as though it was no big deal. But she knew different.

It was two in the morning. Alex had driven her home from the dance, dropping her off around one-thirty, and fuming the entire time. He was still upset about Isabel, and although Maria knew she should be sympathetic, she found it difficult to concentrate on his problems.

Michael had kissed her.

Only one thing troubled her. When Max and Liz kissed, they got flashes. Flashes of a past life. Flashes of who Max was. And yet, when she and Michael kissed, she got…

Nothing.

She turned off the water and grabbed a hand towel, then stopped, the towel inches away from her face. Something twisted in her stomach, some sense of… of _something_.

Maria shook her head and pushed the strange feeling away. She was getting paranoid, she decided. She was looking for trouble where there clearly wasn't any.

But half and hour later, the feeling was still there, and as she sat in bed, her knees pulled into her chest, she couldn't help but think that there was somewhere else she was supposed to be.

* * *

"Max?" 

"Tess?"

"Did you feel…?"

"Yes. You did too?"

"Yeah. Isabel?"

"She did also. She's calling Michael."

"Max?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you… worried?"

"Terrified."

"Has Isabel gotten through to Michael yet?"

"No. She says he's not picking up."

"Do you think…?"

"…maybe."

"Hank? Or something else?"

"I don't know."

"Go."

* * *

Max tore through the house and out to his car, not even bothering to be quiet. He didn't care if his parents woke up, Isabel would just have to deal with them. He was more concerned for Michael, who he was fairly certain was in trouble. 

But from what?

When Tess had called, he had been torn between relief that she was alright, and fear that she had felt the same thing he and Isabel did. If all three of them felt that something was wrong, then something really was wrong.

Something with Michael.

He hoped he wasn't too late.

As he drove, he frantically tried to come up with a cover story for why he was visiting Michael at two in the morning. He really couldn't say to Hank, "Well, I had a feeling that he might be in trouble, and since I'm an alien those feelings are generally right."

But as he pulled up in front of the trailer, thoughts of alibis were pushed from his mind. Hank's trailer was dark and silent, but the two next to them were filled with activity.

Police.

The Sheriff was there, along with several deputies he didn't recognize.

He parked the car and got out of it, closing the door and making his way over to the crowd. One of Michael's neighbors, her name might be Gladys Cunningham, was explaining in a loud and dramatic voice, "And the minute I heard screaming, I _knew_ something was happening. That good for nothing boy was back late, and I think Hank was waiting for him. They had some row, and then I heard crashing, and I called the police."

"Thank you, Mrs. Cunningham," Valenti said, jotting down her statement in a notebook. "Do you know why Hank was waiting up for Michael?"

"Probably to make sure he got back home safely," Mrs. Cunningham said. "Michael was gone late, and he was drunk when he got back."

"That's not true!" Max interceded, fury getting the better of him before he realized that he should have probably stayed quiet.

All eyes turned to Max. Valenti seemed surprised to see him there, raising and eyebrow in confusion and… was that suspicion? "Mr. Evans," the Sheriff started, but Max cut him off.

"We had a dance tonight. Michael went to the dance with my sister, so we were carpooling home. I dropped him off, and he _wasn't_ drunk!" And then, just for good measure, he glared at Mrs. Cunningham and said, "And when has Hank ever cared if Michael came home at all?"

"Mr. Guerin is a kind and caring man who…"

Valenti raised a hand to stop Mrs. Cunningham's heated defense of the foster father. Taking Max firmly by the arm, he steered him away from the others so that they could talk without being overheard.

"Where's Michael? What happened?" Max asked instantly.

"He and Hank got into a fight. They are both in the hospital," Valenti replied. "What are you doing out here this late at night?"

"The hospital?" Max asked, ignoring Valenti's question. If Michael was in the hospital, if they took his blood…

"Mr. Evans, I asked…"

"He left… he left his… his sweater in my car, and I was returning it to him," Max lied. "I couldn't sleep so I thought…" He let the sentence drift off for a moment, then said firmly, "Sheriff, Michael would never have attacked Hank without any provocation. _Ever_."

"Even if that is the case, Mr. Evans, you will still be hard pressed to explain why Michael only had a few fractured ribs and a concussion, and Hank Guerin was almost dead," Valenti replied grimly. In light of the recent events, namely Mr. Collins expressing concern for Michael's wellbeing, the Sheriff was inclined to believe that Michael was acting more in self defense than in outright aggression. But it would appear that he took self defense too far.

"Almost dead?" Max breathed.

"He crashed through a wall, Mr. Evans," the Sheriff replied. "He had plaster embedded in his back and the backs of his arms and legs. He had a severe concussion and quite a lot of blood loss."

Max swallowed and shook his head. He didn't believe that Michael would do anything like that… intentionally. But he had never had the best control over his gifts. What if he had accidentally lost control?

"What's going to happen?" Max asked, horrified at the possibility of Michael being in actual trouble, trouble they couldn't save him from.

"I suppose that depends on whether or not Michael is willing to talk," the Sheriff replied. At Max's confused stare, Valenti elaborated, "When I spoke to him at the hospital, he refused to reveal any of the details of the night."

"Sheriff?" a deputy approached.

Valenti turned and nodded. "What is it, Deputy Fisher?" he asked.

"Mrs. Cunningham has a few more details she would like to add to her story. Should I question her, or would you like to continue that?" the deputy asked as he walked towards them.

Max eyed the approaching man. He didn't recognize him, and he was fairly certain he had never heard of a deputy named Fisher before. He wondered who the strange man was, but Valenti answered the question for him.

"Mr. Evans, this is Deputy Fisher. He is Deputy Hannigan's replacement."

Max nodded, thinking of the dead deputy, the shape-shifter Isabel had seen, and all the unresolved issues that they would have to address at some point.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Evans," Fisher replied, giving Max an appraising look.

"You should go home, Mr. Evans," Valenti said firmly. "Go home, get some sleep, and you can visit Michael at the hospital tomorrow. He should be released soon."

Max nodded and walked back towards his car.

"What was he doing here, sir?" Fisher asked in confusion, turning to Valenti.

"He said he was returning a sweater," Valenti explained.

Fisher gave his boss a shrew look and questioned, "Do you believe him?"

Valenti glanced back at the trailer were a man had been thrown through a plaster wall and shook his head. "No," he said softly. "No, I don't."

* * *

In the car, Max pulled out his cell phone and called Isabel. He listened to the rings on the other end of the line and wondered what to do next. He couldn't go see Michael at the hospital yet because it was the middle of the night, and he no doctor or nurse would let him in. At the same time, he had to get there before they looked at Michael's blood, because he didn't even want to think of what the repercussions of that would be. 

His sister picked up and demanded, "Max? What happened? Is Michael alright?"

"No," Max replied quickly. He heard Isabel's intake of breath, but realized that he didn't have time to explain to her what had happened. The beginning of a plan was forming in his mind, and they needed to act quickly for it to work. "Izzy, dream-walk Michael. If he's asleep, you should be able to get into his mind."

"You want me to dream-walk him?" Isabel asked, surprised. "Where is he?"

"At the hospital," Max explained wearily. "Something happened with Hank, and Michael could be in trouble. Legal trouble. I need you to figure out what happened, and quickly."

And Isabel didn't ask questions, didn't demand to know if he had a plan, didn't hesitate to simply say, "Alright. I'm on it." She hung up the phone and left Max in the silence of his car.

He pulled the car out of the trailer lot and dialed another number. Tess answered after the first ring, her voice sharp with fear.

"What?"

"Meet me at the hospital."

Like Isabel, Tess asked no questions. "On my way," she replied immediately and hung up the phone.

Finally, he called Alex. They would need to switch blood, replace Michael's blood with human blood. Male human blood.

Alex picked up the phone and said groggily, "What?"

"Alex? It's Max. I need a favor."

"What do you need?" Alex asked, instantly wide awake. He could hear the terror in Max's voice, and new that something serious had just happened.

"Your blood."

* * *

"_You been tellin' them social workers lies 'bout me, boy? You'll have hell to pay for that!" Hank snarled as the door slammed open, crashing into the wall behind it._

_Michael looked up in confusion and disgust. "What?"_

Isabel glanced around the scene. Michael's dreams were disturbing to say the least, but this one was just plain confusing. He kept switching between different images, and she could only pickout bits and pieces of what had happened that night.

_Michael leaned against the car and held the strange button in his hand, just staring at it. He turned to close the car door, and walked quickly away from the police compound, still holding the button._

_And then…_

_White. All white. Pain, unbearable pain. Lights flashing. The metallic taste of blood in his mouth, men appearing one either side, a strange smell in the air, some chemical. Burning on his skin, icy cold water and salty tears. Pain, unbearable pain. _

_White._

Was that the vision Michael had had after breaking into Hannigan's car, Isabel wondered. It was definitely the same button that he had shown her, and it looked like it might be the same memory.

She shivered in sudden fear. The vision unnerved her. Something about all that white...

_They were standing on the side of a highway. Maria and Michael were waiting by her overheated car while a stranger called a garage for them._

"_You never did answer that last question I asked you," Maria commented. "Number fifteen, I think. What are you afraid of? You owe me." She jerked her head towards the other man and lifted her eyebrows in warning._

_Michael sighed. "I'm afraid of never finding out who I am, of never belonging anywhere, of never answering any of my questions. Or worse, I'm afraid of having someone else find out all the answers first. I need those answers."_

"_Why?"_

"_Because there has to be something out there that's better than Roswell, New Mexico."_

"Touching, but this isn't helpful, Michael," Isabel complained to herself. "What happened last night? Show me what happened."

As if answering her request, the dream changed.

_Michael was kneeling on the floor, a bruise on his face. He was clutching his abdomen, and looking up at Hank in horror._

_Hank was standing over him, anger written plainly on his face. "You ungrateful brat! Tellin' them lies about me. After everything I did for you!"_

_Michael pulled himself to his feet and gave a dark chuckle. "Everything you did for me?" he mimicked sarcastically._

"_I protected you, you unnatural freak!"_

_Michael froze._

"_You think I didn't notice, boy?" Hank sneered, gloating triumphantly. "All them crazy things you can do? But when that guidance lady came, I didn't tell her nothin' at all! And she asked if you was different!"_

"_Don't…!"_

"_Don't what? Don't tell?" Hank sneered, his words slightly slurred as he leaned against the wall, and even in his inebriated state, he still towered over Michael. "What do you think would happen if I told them, huh? Maybe then they'll take you away. You and those two Evans brats you is always hangin' with!"_

_Michael stared at Hank, pure hatred flickering in his eyes, and he lifted both his hands._

"Michael! NO!" Isabel screamed out a warning she knew he wouldn't hear. It was a dream, after all, and she couldn't change the past.So she was forced to watch helplessly as the scene unfolded, and the nightmare revealed itself.

_Raw power flowed from Michael's outstretched hands and smashed into Hank, lifting him from the ground and propelling him through the air. For a moment, Michael just stood there, staring in horror at what he had done, then he heard the sound of shouting outside, the wail of sirens, and he collapsed to his knees._

_The world around him faded in and out of his vision and he closed his eyes against a throbbing headache._

Isabel jerked herself out of the dream.

Running her hand through her hair, she took a few steadying breathes and tried to figure out what to do next. She thought over the dream, and two parts instantly leaped out at her. The first was that Hank knew about Michael's abilities, and clearly had some idea that she and Max were wrapped up in this as well. The second was that Ms. Topolski had been asking questions about Michael.

She reached for the phone and called Max, knowing that he would want to hear about Michael's dream.

She hoped he had some plan to get them all out of this.

* * *

Next Chapter: Blood Brothers 

Due: Sun 9/10


	44. Blood Brothers

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Thanks for the reviews. Although most of this chapter is different from the episode by the same name, the idea is taken almost directly from the show, so I feel like I should add a specific disclaimer that I do not own the idea of switching blood.

* * *

Chapter Forty-Three: Blood Brothers

It was a little past four in the morning when the shrill buzz of the phone woke Ms. Topolski from her deep sleep. She groped through the darkness until her hand landed on the smooth plastic of the phone, then lifted it to her ear and answered in a tired voice, "Agent Topolski."

"Michael Guerin was taken to the hospital almost an hour ago."

She was suddenly wide awake. She sat up in bed and clutched the phone to her ear. "Which hospital, Agent Pierce?" she asked quickly.

"Roswell Memorial."

Ms. Topolski hung up the phone and glanced at the clock. She grabbed the phone and dialed another number. "Agent Willis? Meet me at Roswell Memorial Hospital in ten minutes. We have an opportunity."

* * *

"You stole a needle and a test tube?" Alex asked under his breath, glancing incredulously at Max. 

Max shrugged. "I told you, we need your blood."

"Yes, but I don't understand why," Alex pressed.

They were sitting in a car in the parking lot of the hospital, waiting for Tess to show up. Because it was so early in morning, Max didn't feel that they could do any of this in the hospital, their presence would draw too much attention. So he had slipped into the hospital and snagged the empty vial and the needle, then slipped out again.

Max sighed. "Look, they're going to take Michael's blood. And his blood… our blood… it doesn't look like normal human blood. So we have to switch it with yours." He glanced out the window in frustration. They were running out of time, where was Tess?

But a moment later, he recognized Kyle's car pulling into the parking lot, and Tess climbing out of the driver's seat. She looked around the parking lot until she located Max's car, then she walked hurriedly over to him. Yanking open the backseat door, she slipped in and asked, "Alright, what's going on, and what's the plan?"

"Michael's in the hospital, we need to switch his blood," Max replied, holding up the needle and vial.

Tess snatched the needle out of Max's hands and turned to Alex. "Roll up your sleeve," she ordered brusquely.

Alex started at her, unsure for a moment, and she gave him an icy glare. He yanked his sleeve up quickly, and looked away as she unemotionally jabbed the needle into his arm. A thin stream of red blood shot into the vial, and he winced slightly in pain.

"Tess, you're going to need to mind-warp anyone who's watching," Max said briskly as the vial filled. "I'll slip in and exchange the two vials of blood."

"What about me?" Alex asked, rubbing his arm after Tess had withdrawn the needle.

"You stay here," Max ordered. He glanced over at Tess. "How long can you hold a mind-warp?"

"How long do you need?"

"Just a few minutes, but it will be a lot of people…"

Tess licked her dry lips, suddenly worried. Then she shook her head and squared her shoulders determinedly. "However long you need, I can do it."

"Tess, you don't understand, this is…"

"No, Max, you don't understand," Tess cut him off. "This is our only chance to keep Michael, and probably the rest of us, out of the FBI's hands. Whatever it is you need me to do, I _can _do it. I'm strong enough."

Max gave her a hard look, then nodded and the two of them climbed out of the car.

* * *

Dr. Drake watched the monitor for a moment, listening to the rhythmic beeps which indicated that Michael's heart was still beating as normal. He sighed and glanced over at one of the nurses. "Nice work, Nurse Jennings," he complimented. "The boy is stable." 

The nurse gave the doctor a smile and slipped out of the room. Drake stared at Michael for a long time, his eyes confused and shadowed. A boy had been brought into the hospital with his foster father, both had been hurt. It would not have surprised him had it been anyone else, but it was Michael Guerin, and somehow he felt that the entire mystery was wrapped up in this one boy.

He needed those lab reports.

He left the room. In the hallway, he let the door swing shut behind him, then turned and strode quickly towards his office.

He did not see the set of yellowish eyes watching him from the other end of the hallway.

Sean watched the doctor disappear into his office, then sighed and sat down on one of the benches out side of Amy's room. The doctor was too close to the truth, the guidance counselor was too close to the truth, and now…

He didn't know why, but he had the feeling that Amy suspected something. She had been anxious and unsure around him, and it had been the only time that she had acted like that since he had first walked through the door and pretended to be her husband.

He didn't know what to do. Amy may suspect, but she clearly had no idea what exactly was wrong. He was fairly certain that she had never once suspected that her daughter was friends with aliens, so she was the least of the threats.

For now.

The guidance counselor and the doctor, however, would need to be taken care of.

Soon.

* * *

Max and Tess stood in the woman's bathroom closest to Michael's room. Tess was sitting cross-legged on the floor at the far back of the room, and Max crouched beside her, watching her intently as he waited for her gifts to start working. 

Tess closed her eyes and emptied her mind of everything except her power. She reached out, tentatively at first, and carefully latched on to the minds of the people around her. She knew it would be difficult to locate everyone she needed to mind-warp because she couldn't see them. Normally she would be able to see the people she wanted to mind-warp, or she would at least know who they were. This was a different scenario, and she was slightly worried about how successful she would be.

But she had to do this. For all their sakes, especially Michael's this _had_ to work.

Sometimes she could identify the people around her by sensing for the number and type of minds within her control. Trusting that if she did that she would be able to find everyone in the hallway who could possibly be a threat, she held her breath and fought for her gift to work. There were several nurses, few doctors, and someone on the janitorial staff. And…

Her eyes snapped open and she glanced over at Max in shock.

"What?" Max demanded anxiously.

"Max, there's someone here. Someone… someone not human. I felt it."

"Are you sure it wasn't just Michael?" Max asked anxiously.

Tess shook her head and chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully. "It definitely wasn't Michael," she said at last. "Maybe the shape-shifter?" If that was true, he was closer to them than they all thought. But who was he?

"Where was this person?" Max asked.

Tess shook her head. "I don't know. Somewhere in the hallway outside Michael's room. I can't narrow down locations anymore than that."

"Can you mind-warp him also?" Max questioned.

Tess considered this, than nodded. "I think so, although I'm not sure. And even if I can mind-warp him, he might be able to tell that he is being mind-warped." She had never been forced to use her powers on a non-human before, and didn't know the extent to which they would work.

"Do your best," Max replied. "Whatever happens, we'll deal with it when it happens."

Tess nodded and closed her eyes, concentrating again.

Max gave her one last glance, then slipped noiselessly out of the room. In the hallway, he glanced around and walked over to one of the nurses. Standing directly in front of her, he stared at her calmly and waited for her to acknowledge his presence.

She said nothing.

He turned, pleased that Tess had managed to completely cloak his presence, and glanced up at the ceiling. He located three surveillance cameras, all of which he quickly concentrated on, and destroyed. Satisfied that they would not record his presence, he turned and hurried towards one of the rooms a few feet away. He pulled the door slightly open, just enough for him to be able to slip into the room, and then glanced around. The room was filled with shelves of blood, and as he hurried up and down them, seeking out the name Michael Guerin, he couldn't help but worry that perhaps he was too late.

But he found Michael's blood in the last row, and switched the vials. A moment later, the door opened and nurse entered the room, taking the vial of blood that was labeled with Michael Guerin's name.

Max breathed a sigh of relief once the nurse was gone, and looked at the vial clutched tightly in his hand. He focused on it for a moment, and his hand grew hot. The hard plastic of the vial began to twist as it was heated past endurance, and soon it was nothing more than a pile of ash. The liquid blood inside evaporated away, and Max dropped the remains into garbage can.

Once in the hallway again, he ran towards the girl's bathroom and pushed his way inside. Fortunately it was still empty, and he called out quickly, "Tess!"

She emerged from the back, white and shaking. She was holding onto the wall to keep herself standing, and Max looked at her in sudden concern.

"I'm okay," she answered his unasked question. "I'm just tired..."

"We need to get out of here soon, because the Sheriff is probably on his way," Max remarked, reaching out and offering Tess a hand.

She didn't take his hand, just looked at Max in surprise. "Why would Jim be coming?" she questioned. She still had no idea what had happened or why Michael was in the hospital, she had been so intent on making sure his blood was successfully switched that she had forgotten to ask.

"He was at the trailer park when I got there," Max explained. "One of the neighbors had called the police when she heard the disturbance."

"What happened?" Tess asked, her eyes narrowing dangerously.

For once, Max knew her anger was not directed at him, and he felt slightly sorry for Hank should Tess ever catch up with him. Then again, he reflected, had they not managed to switch Michael's blood tonight, or if Michael's injuries had been enough to seriously hurt him, Tess would not have been able to do Hank any harm.

Max would have beaten her to it.

Pushing thoughts of Hank away, he said quickly, "Hank and Michael got into a fight, and Michael might be in legal trouble because Hank is more injured. We don't know the details, Isabel is trying to figure it all out right now."

Tess' countenance darkened.

Max reached out and caught her arm, saying forcefully, "Don't do anything stupid, Tess." He stared straight into her baby blue eyes and waited until she had met his gaze. "Don't do anything stupid," he repeated.

"I don't," Tess replied icily. "You're always the one who acts without thinking."

Max opened his mouth to argue, then shook his head and sighed, both because he knew there was no point in getting into this discussion, and because he knew that Tess was, in some instances, quite correct.

"We need to go before Jim gets here and starts asking questions," Max said finally, switching back to the previous subject.

Tess swallowed and nodded. "You go first and I'll follow. We don't want to be seen together if we run into anyone we know, and I still need a minute to… catch my breath." Max seemed reluctant to leave and she said in exasperation, "Come on, Max. Isabel might have figured something out by now, and we may not have much time."

Max gave her a searching look. She was tired, her skin was pale, her breathing was heavy and uneven. He sighed and nodded. "Fine. Be careful. Call me when you are safely back at your house." The last was an order, and Tess found herself agreeing with it without really thinking.

Max left the room, and Tess watched him go in silence. The minute he was gone, however, she forced her breathing to return to semi-normal, and she stood walked towards the door determinedly. In the hallway, she glanced over at the exit sign in time to see Max pass though the door and out into the parking lot, then she turned and walked the other way.

* * *

"He's here now, Isabel," Alex said into the cell phone as Max opened the door of the car. "Yeah, hold on a second, okay?" He turned from the cell phone to Max and said, "Isabel just called, I answered your phone because you left it in the car." He held out the cell phone to Max, who grabbed it quickly. 

"Izzy? What happened?" Max asked hurriedly as he slid into the driver's seat.

"Hanks knows about Michael's gifts. And ours. I don't know how long he's known, but he was drunk last night, and he threatened to expose us. Michael lost control of his gifts and sent Hank flying into the wall."

Max felt his breath catch in his throat and his eyes widened in horror. "He knows?" he asked. They had always been so careful around him. Given the lack of control Michael had over his own abilities and the fact that Hank was constantly drunk and often abusive, they had always known that Michael's living situation could cause the most trouble. As a result, all of them, even Michael, had tried their best not to reveal anything that Hank could use against them.

Apparently their best had not been enough.

"Max? It gets worse," Isabel hurried on. "According to the dream I saw, Hank told Michael that Ms. Topolski was asking questions. About Michael and his… unnatural abilities."

"Damn it," Max swore under his breath. "This is… damn it!"

"Do you think she's with the government? Or just really nosy?"

Max contemplated the question for a moment, then replied, "I don't know, but either way she's a threat. We're going to need to be careful from now on."

"When is Michael getting out of the hospital?"

"I don't know, it's four in the morning or so, I couldn't really walk up to a nurse and start demanding answers," Max pointed out.

Isabel sighed, "True. Did you switch the blood?"

"Yes. I'm coming home now, and we'll come back first thing in the morning."

"Max, what if they take more blood? What if they do more blood tests?" Isabel asked, worried. She didn't like the idea of leaving Michael at the hospital by himself, although she understand that the circumstances would make it suspicious if any of them stayed there.

"I don't know, Izzy. I don't like the idea of leaving him any more than you do, but I just don't see how we can stay here and not get into even worse trouble. I already ran into the Sheriff once, and I think he was suspicious of me. I don't want to repeat that."

Alex, who had been listening to Max's side of the conversation, and had guessed the dilemma facing Max, tugged on Max's shirt and said, "I have an idea."

* * *

Ms. Topolski walked down the hallway quickly, her footsteps echoing slightly in the empty hall. As she drew near to Michael Guerin's hospital room, she slowed slightly and glanced around. There were no doctors or nurses around, and the janitorial staff seemed to be paying her little attention. 

She stopped outside of Michael's room and gave the hallway one last uneasy glance, before shoving the door open and stepping into the room. She let the door swing shut behind her, and looked at the bed. Michael was lying on it, still unconscious. The monitors around him beeped and hummed, indicating that his breathing was normal and his heart rate was steady.

"What did you do?" she murmured, staring at him. She walked around to the other side of the bed and leaned over Michael, listening to the sound of his breathing. Then she straightened and walked to the small desk near the window of the room. The doctor had left a medical file there, and she picked it up curiously. Flipping through the pages, she scanned his charts and past medical history. There wasn't much here, which was a anomaly in and of itself. By the age of sixteen, there should have been _something_ on Michael. Vaccination shots, physical exams, a childhood case of the chickenpox or the flu. But there was none of this.

"Do you not get sick?" she mused, slanting a look over her shoulder at Michael. She tucked the medical file under her arm and walked towards the door.

She needed the results of the Michael's blood test.

* * *

Maria hung up the phone and grabbed a sweatshirt from her dresser. She pulled it over her head and thought over what Alex had just told her. Michael was in the hospital, but Alex didn't know why or how bad it was. Max had just switched Michael and Alex's blood so that when they ran tests on Michael the blood would be human blood. Jim Valenti was probably on his way to the hospital… she wasn't sure why he would be there… and Max couldn't stay because it would be too suspicious. Again, she wasn't sure why the Sheriff would be suspicious. But they wanted someone to stay because Michael could still be in some form of trouble… she wasn't sure what form, though… and Alex thought she would be the perfect person to stay there, because she could claim she didn't want to leave her mother. That way no one would be suspicious, and if something happened, she could alert Max. 

The hospital had allowed her to visit her mother after visiting hours, after all, so it was a reasonable excuse for why she should be there.

But she didn't want to see her mother right now.

Of course, maybe her mother was asleep. Maybe she wouldn't have to see her mother.

And if Michael was in some form of danger…

She stuck her feet in her shoes and tied the laces. There was more to the story than she had been told, but it appeared as though Alex didn't know anything else either. Whatever was going on, Max, Isabel, and Tess were not talking about it.

At least, not with the humans.

She bristled with anger. She had as much a right to know as anyone else. Michael was her boyfriend!

Sort of…

She really wasn't sure what they were.

He'd kissed her, though. That meant something, didn't it?

She grabbed her keys from her desk and slung her purse over her shoulder, then walked out of her bedroom.

* * *

Tess stood slowly and backed away from the body, turning slightly as the door behind her opened. 

After she had left the bathroom, she had been determined to find this shape-shifter, or whoever it was that she had sensed. If he was the shape-shifter Isabel had seen, then he was a danger to all of them. He had killed at least once, probably more than that. And…

The Hardings.

What if this was the same man who had killed the Hardings?

She couldn't let it go. She just couldn't _not_ go looking for him, even though she knew it was a bad idea. Even though she knew Max would be furious, and for once he would actually be right. Even though she knew what she was doing was stupid and could get her into a lot of trouble.

She had to find this person. She just had to.

The hallway had been empty besides someone mopping the floor at the far end. Frowning, Tess had tried to figure out where the man could have gone in the few minutes between when she had been mind-warping him and when she had left the bathroom.

There were several doors in the hallway, but she couldn't go knocking on all of them. So she had just trusted her instincts and gone to the door that, for some unknowable reason, felt like the right one. She had shoved the door open and stepped inside…

And there was the dead body of Amy DeLuca's doctor on the ground.

With a silver handprint glowing slightly from beneath the torn front of his shirt.

Her first instinct had been to check if he was still breathing. He wasn't, and he had no pulse. There was no one else in the room, but the papers on the desk were shoved about as though someone had hurriedly looked through them. The door at the far end of the room was slightly open, and through the crack between the door and the wall, Tess had been able to see another hallway, one that she was fairly certain lead to the part of the hospital that was off limits for visitors.

Whoever had killed the doctor had gone through that door.

Tess had hesitated, torn between whether or not she should follow. She had wanted to follow, had been about to follow, when she had heard footsteps in the hallway outside the main door, and then the doorknob had started to turn. She had spun around, her eyes wide with fear, as the door swung open.

And now here she was, standing by a dead body, wondering what the hell had just happened, and what she was supposed to do next.

* * *

Next Chapter: Regrouping 

Due: Sun 9/17


	45. Regrouping

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Something about this chapter didn't seem to flow quite right, so I apologize that I don't think my writing is particularly good for this installment. Also, at the end of the last chapter, Tess is standing in the doctor's office while the door behind her opens. The shape-shifter has already fled the scene (through the other door), so whoever is coming into the room, it is not an alien.

* * *

Chapter Forty-Four: Regrouping

Tess reached out with one hand and slammed the door shut, then used her gifts to melt the doorknob so that the door could not be opened from the outside. Her mind reeling frantically, she ran over her list of options. There were no cameras in the room, and Max had disabled all the cameras in the hallway before switching Michael's blood. No one had seen her enter the room, and it was fairly safe to say that no one even knew she was at the hospital. If she could get safely to the parking lot before anyone saw her, there was no reason for anyone to suspect her at all.

Her eyes darted to the other door in the room. It was her only way out of here. She fled through it and along the narrow hallway.

She found herself a moment later in the research branch of the hospital. The fluorescent blue-white lights glowed down from above, illuminating the long hallway. A set of doors on one side were marked with numbers and names and the other wall was lined with posters of different biochemical pathways and biomedical advancements.

Fortunately, the hallway was empty, but Tess could hear the sounds of people working in the laboratories. Even though it was late at night, or, rather, earlier in the morning, she knew people would still be at work, and she couldn't stay here for long.

She walked down the hallway, thankful that her shoes made little noise. After a few painstakingly quiet moments, she found the door to a staircase, which she quickly opened. The staircase curved up and down. She closed her eyes and pictured the building. Michael's room had been on the main floor, so this was eventually the floor she wanted to end on in order to get safely to the parking lot.

She glanced at her watch. How long before Jim got here? Would he recognize her car? Probably not, it was dark and he would have other things on his mind.

She shut the door to the staircase and turned away from it. She didn't want to go up or down floors, that would only serve to make her escape longer. She needed to get out of here as quickly as possible.

She continued down the hallway for a few minutes, until she caught sight of a neon green exit sign. She hurried to the door it marked, and pushed against it gently, opening it by the tiniest fraction. Peering through the crack in the door, she determined that she was looking into another hallway lined with patients' rooms. The hallway seemed to be empty except for two nurses who were leaving a room near the middle of the hallway.

As soon as the nurses were looking in the other direction, Tess slipped out into the hall and closed the door quietly, but firmly. She breathed a sigh of relief and scanned around for the nearest exit sign. About ten or twelve feet away was a door marked with an exit sign, and she was fairly certain it lead to a side street. Once outside the hospital, she figured she could make her way back to the parking lot and find her car.

Giving the hallway one last glance, she destroyed the two surveillance cameras that would have recorded her coming out of the 'employees only' part of the hospital. Then she turned and walked purposefully towards the door.

Once safely outside in the cool night air, she took a few steady breaths, relief flooding through her veins.

* * *

Ms. Topolski and Agent Willis stared at the dead body, at the partially melted doorknob, at the silver handprint glowing eerily in the room, at the scattered papers on the desk, at the slightly open door across the room. 

"How many deaths is this?" Willis asked, bending down next to the doctor's body.

Ms. Topolski snapped her cell phone shut and closed the door to the room. She had just finished calling in the death to Agent Pierce, who had sent a few other FBI members as back up. They had to keep this away from the press as long as possible, because if news of the silver handprint came out, reporters would have a field day.

"Three that we believe are linked to the same person," she replied. She thought of the Hardings and amended, "Possibly five deaths, but two of them can't have been caused by this murderer. He was in our hands at the time of death."

"Deputy Hannigan, the homeless man in the alley, and Dr. Drake," Willis said, ticking the names off on his fingers. "They have nothing in common, as far as I can tell." He frowned at Ms. Topolski and asked, "Who were the other two who died?"

Ms. Topolski replied, "That's classified," in a tone that effectively ended the conversation. "Brush the room for prints," she ordered briskly, slipping back into her professional mode. She doubted they would find prints, but it was still worth a shot. "When the rest of the agents get her, tell them to sort through the papers on the desk and determine if anything was taken."

"Where are you going?" Willis questioned curiously.

Ms. Topolski gave the body one last grim look, then said, "I'm going to inform the Sheriff of what happened, and I'm going to make sure he stays away from the case."

* * *

Maria pushed open the door to her mother's room and stepped inside. Amy was lying asleep on the bed, the twisting wires and tubes wrapped around her like snakes. The window over the bed let the moonlight cascade into the room, and Maria sighed as she took a seat in one of the available chairs. 

She stared at her mother for a moment, watching the steady rise and fall of Amy's chest. The room felt suddenly cold to her, and she shivered, pulling her sweatshirt tighter around herself as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"Why did you keep me?" Maria whispered, the words catching slightly in her throat. "If I was… if I came from _that_ man, how could you bear to keep me? To see me every day?"

"Because she loved you."

Maria spun around to see Sean standing in the doorway behind her. He flushed slightly at her scrutinizing gaze, but gave a wan smile.

"I'm sorry to intrude, Maria. I'm sure you want some time alone with your mother," Sean said quickly, backing towards the door as he realized that perhaps his presence was not wanted.

Maria didn't reply, just looked back at her mother thoughtfully. Although she was technically here at the hospital to make sure that nothing happened to Michael, she had also come to the realization that she would have to face her mother again at some point.

But she honestly didn't understand how her mother could love her. After all, how could she be anything more than a reminder of what had happened all those years ago?

As if reading her thoughts, Sean said, "You know, love isn't really all that rational. Sometimes you can love someone, and have no idea why."

Maria thought of Michael and the hint of a smile tugged at the corner's of her lips. "Yeah…" She turned and looked at Sean. "How long have you known about me? I mean… did my mom tell you when she found out she was pregnant?"

Sean hesitated, his eyes wandering around the room for a moment, thinking. Maria frowned, wondering what he had to think about. Was he trying to figure out how much to tell her? Was there more to the story than her mother had told her?

"Not at first," Sean replied at last. "But she couldn't hide it forever, you know." He looked down at his hands as he leaned against the doorframe. "I was surprised when I found out." He looked up at Maria, giving her a searching stare, then asked, "What has your mother told you about me?"

"What do you mean?" Maria asked, confused.

"Um… well, lately… I just wondered what she had said, if anything, about me," Sean explained in a halting voice.

"Just that she loved you," Maria replied slowly. "Just that she loved you a lot."

"And I loved her," Sean answered. He glanced at Amy, then continued, "I'll give you some alone time." And he turned and left the room.

Out in the hallway, he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Whatever suspicions Amy might have about him, it appeared that she had not conveyed them to her daughter. He was safe for now, and with the doctor out of the way…

It was time he turned his attention to the guidance counselor.

* * *

Max took a seat on the bed, folding his legs under himself and staring at Isabel. She was sitting across from him, her knees pulled into her chest, her back leaning against the headboard of her bed. Her long blonde hair fell over her pale features, partially hiding her wide eyes from view. 

But Max could feel the fear radiating off of her in great waves.

"Look, at least we took care of the blood situation," Max said at last. "And Maria is there now, so if anything happens, she can let us know."

"But then we'd have to get to the hospital in time to stop it," Isabel objected.

"We're only ten minutes away," Max said reassuringly.

"Ten minutes could be too long," Isabel hissed, her quiet voice filled with hysteria.

"I know, Izzy, but this is the best we've got," Max pointed out. "You know we can't stay there, and Maria's the only one with a decent excuse for being there."

"I don't like it," Isabel retorted stonily.

"Neither do I. But what other choice do we have?" Max asked pointedly. "Besides, right now we have bigger problems to worry about." He looked away from Isabel for a moment, thinking over the past fifteen minutes. He had dropped Alex off at his house and driven home. Tess had yet to call, but she lived further away, so he assumed that perhaps she simply hadn't arrived home yet. Well, at any rate, he hoped that was the case.

On top of worries about her, however, he had to deal with the fact that Michael could be in serious legal trouble, Hank knew about their gifts, and Ms. Topolski had been asking questions.

"How much trouble do you think Michael is in?" Isabel asked at last, accepting the fact that leaving Maria at the hospital was all they could do at the moment.

"A lot," Max muttered, thinking about the woman at the trailer park. She certainly seemed to have a skewed idea of what went on in the Guerins' trailer, and she had no objections to sharing her wrongful accusations with the Sheriff. "Considering how badly hurt Hank is…"

"We should talk to Dad," Isabel suggested. Their father was a lawyer, perhaps he could help.

Max nodded in agreement. "Yeah, we should." He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and asked, "How much of a threat do you think Hank really is? I mean, in the dream, did he… do you think he might actually expose Michael?"

Isabel shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know how much of what he said was just a drunken rage. But he clearly knows something, and…" She paused, thinking about her next words, then said in frustration, "I would not stake my life on his ability to keep it secret."

"Unless he forgot," Max mused.

"Mind-warp?" Isabel shook her head. "Tess can't just walk into the room and use her gifts, people will notice. And we can't wait until he is released from the hospital because the Sheriff is going to be asking questions before that." She thought for a moment, then continued, "And if he really fell through a wall, he could have brain damage. If he does, we don't know what will happen if Tess mind-warps him, and I don't think she's going to want to take the risk of causing permanent damage… or death."

"I don't know how to get Michael out of this otherwise," Max replied in frustration. "Even if Dad could somehow miraculously keep Michael out of legal trouble, if Hank talks, we're all screwed."

"Somehow we have to make sure he doesn't talk," Isabel agreed. "At least until he is healthy enough that Tess can make him forget."

The beginnings of an idea began to take hold in Max's mind, and he pursed his lips, thinking.

"Max?"

"I'm thinking," Max mused in reply. He glanced over at Isabel and said, "I have to talk to Tess first, but if this works…" Isabel stared at him expectantly, but he didn't elaborate. Instead, he switched the subjects and said, "Izzy, wake up Dad now. Tell him what happened to Michael, see if he has any ideas."

"Max, it's five in the morning," Isabel pointed out incredulously.

"And we might not have that much time," Max rejoined.

Isabel sighed, recognizing the truth in that statement, and left the room to find her father. Max reached for the cell phone and dialed Tess' number, hoping she would answer the phone.

And praying that his idea would work.

But Tess didn't answer her cell phone.

Max frowned as he returned to the phone to its receiver, he was starting to get worried. A thousand horrible scenarios flashed through his mind, many of which involved Tess in the hands of the FBI.

But this was Tess, he reminded himself. She wouldn't do anything stupid.

Right?

There had been someone not human in the hallway, he remembered that Tess had been able to sense that. Did the nonhuman know that Tess had mind-warped him? Had that person tried to attack Tess?

Or had Tess tried to attack him?

The thought rose in his mind, and he realized with sudden certainty that he had been an idiot to believe her when she said she would leave the hospital right after he did. This person was an alien, probably a shape-shifter. And the shape-shifter killed with silver handprints, Isabel had seen that.

Andrew and Jessica Harding.

If Tess thought there was any chance that the person she had sensed in the hospital hallway was the same person that had murdered the Hardings, she would have gone after them. Max knew that, they all knew exactly how Tess felt about what had happened. She wouldn't be able to let it go.

Had she gotten herself into trouble?

A sharp tap at his window caused Max to look up and frown in confusion. He walked over to the window and pulled the shades away, and saw Tess standing there. Without thinking, he yanked the window open and stepped aside to allow Tess into his room.

One look at the petite blonde and he knew something had happened.

"Tell me," he ordered.

"It's Amy DeLuca's doctor," Tess said, not meeting his gaze. "He's dead."

Silence. Then…

"How?"

"I don't know. He was dead when I got to the room. He… he had a silver handprint on his chest." She looked up at him, fear in her sapphire eyes, and waited for him to say something.

Max stared at her for a moment, fury lining his features. It took all his willpower and self-control not to yell at Tess right then and there. How could she be so stupid? How could she do something like this? How…?

"Tell me everything," Max demanded, sitting down on the bed and gesturing for her to the do the same.

But Tess preferred to stand, opting to pace back and forth across the bedroom floor. "After you left, I went to find the man I had sensed before, the nonhuman…"

* * *

"Is Michael alright?" Mrs. Evans asked as she hunted around her closet for a bathrobe. Mr. Evans sat on the bed, a legal pad and a pen in his hands, a thoughtful expression on his face. Isabel was perched at the far end of the bed, her arms wrapped tightly around her body as she spoke. 

"I think so. We don't know the full details."

"Alright," Mr. Evans looked up from his notepad. "Let me go over this again. Max couldn't sleep, so he decided to drop off the sweatshirt that Michael had left earlier. When he got to the trailer park, he ran into Jim, who told him that Michael was in the hospital. There had been some form of domestic disturbance, but Hank received the worse injury, and almost died?"

"Yes," Isabel agreed, but hurriedly protested, "Dad, I know what it looks like…"

"No, Izzy, I'm not sure you do," Mr. Evans said slowly. "Michael's got a record and a reputation and the only witness seems to think it was his fault. You'll be hard pressed to find any judge who is going to decide otherwise."

"But Dad, Michael didn't do anything. I _know_ he didn't," Isabel argued.

"Then how did Hank end up so badly hurt?" Mr. Evans asked pointedly. "Men don't just crash into walls on their own." He liked Michael, and he wanted to believe that the boy would never purposefully endanger his foster father's life. But the evidence didn't add up, and as a lawyer, he had to look at the facts and not his own personal prejudices.

Isabel stopped, unable to answer the question. She couldn't very well inform her father that Michael had used superhuman abilities to throw attack Hank. But she also couldn't believe that her father would side with the abusive foster father over his own children.

As if reading her mind, Mr. Evans sighed and said, "Izzy, sweetheart, I'm not saying that Michael is to blame for what happened. I know Hank, and I have no doubt that he had too much to drink and lost control of his temper. But the facts say otherwise, and can't change that."

"But you believe me?" Isabel whispered.

"Yes," Mr. Evans replied firmly. "I do." He rubbed the back of his head absently and looked over at his wife. "Do you think someone spoke to Hank about removing Michael from his care?" he asked her.

Mrs. Evans considered this, then nodded slowly. "If someone did, it would make sense why Hank was so violent," she conceded.

"If that is the case, it might help," Mr. Evans considered the idea. "We could use it as the reason why Hank was drunk and angry… that might convince the judge that Hank started it… still have to find a way to keep Michael out of trouble for going too far in self defense…"

Isabel listened to the exchange with interest. Was that why the Sheriff had come over earlier? Because someone had spoken to him about removing Michael from Hank's care? Isabel remembered that her mother had been under the impression that Michael had spoken to Child Protection Services. Since that obviously wasn't the case, the social worker might not have realized how bad things really were for Michael, and may have tried to talk to Hank by himself.

And as usual, Hank took his frustration out on Michael.

"Do you think you can help Michael?" the blonde alien asked at last, her voice hopeful.

"I can try," Mr. Evans replied. He stood up decisively and continued, "I'm going to go down to the hospital now. If Michael is awake, I can talk to him, let him know the situation. Maybe he can shed some light on what happened. If he isn't awake, I can speak to his doctor and maybe to Jim Valenti."

"Thanks," Isabel gave a grateful smile.

Mr. Evans placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder and said, "We're going to get to the bottom of this, Isabel. I promise, we'll figure out how to fix it."

Isabel watched him leave the room, then glanced over at her mother. Mrs. Evans was staring at her with an unnaturally shrewd expression on her face, and Isabel found herself suddenly too uncomfortable to meet her mother's scrutinizing gaze.

"Is there anything else, Izzy?" Mrs. Evans asked casually, sitting down on the bed.

Isabel swallowed and shook her head. "Um… that's all we know…the Sheriff didn't tell Max anything else…" She glanced quickly at her mother, knowing perfectly well that her mother was asking about something else.

How much did Mrs. Evans suspect? Obviously she knew that her mother had no reason to believe her children were extraterrestrial life forms, but she was suspicious of something. She somehow knew that there was something else going on, and Isabel could tell that she was worried.

"I should go," Isabel said quickly, standing up. She hurried from the room, closing the door behind her, and wishing, yet again, that she didn't need to lie to her parents.

* * *

Sheriff Valenti didn't need to hear the words from Ms. Topolski's lips, he could tell by the look on her face that he wasn't going to be pleased with what she had to say. He turned to the two deputies who were with him and informed them that he would be right back. Then he reached out and took Ms. Topolski's arm, and steered her to a more private part of the hospital hallway. 

"Ms. Topolski," Valenti greeted politely. "I presume that you heard what happened with Michael and Hank Guerin?"

"Yes," Ms. Topolski replied smoothly. She flashed a sympathetic smile and said, "I am concerned about Michael. How is he?"

"I assume that would be a question for his doctor," Valenti replied. "I am hardly qualified to make any pronouncements on his health."

Ms. Topolski nodded. She recalled her last conversation with Sheriff Valenti. At the time, she had opted against informing him that she was truly a member of the FBI. She had not wanted to make him suspicious of her motives, and she did not want her true identity to leak back to Kyle and Tess.

Now she was not entirely sure she had that option. She needed his full cooperation if she was to keep Dr. Drake's death a secret, word traveled too quickly in this tiny desert town. And he certainly would not give her cooperation if he didn't know who she was and who she represented.

"I meant legally," Ms. Topolski replied at last. "I heard that he may be facing some sort of legal trouble."

"It is possible," Valenti consented. "It depends on his story, and Mr. Hank Guerin's version of the events."

"Then we believe that Hank Guerin will make a full recovery?" Ms. Topolski asked. It would be interesting to listen to what the foster father had to say of the past night's events.

"Again, that would be a question for his doctor," Valenti replied. "I am on my way to speak to him now, you may accompany me for the first part of the conversation if you wish," he offered.

Ms. Topolski raised an eyebrow. "The first part?" she asked suspiciously. "And what would the second part of the conversation be about? What are you trying to hide from me?" Her tone was light and filled with a teasing laughter, but her eyes were serious.

"Only that which I cannot discuss with you due to legal matters," Valenti replied honestly. She may be Michael's guidance counselor, but that did not mean that she automatically had the rights to hear all the different aspects of this case.

"I see," Ms. Topolski replied. She slipped one hand into the pocket of her coat and said seriously, "At some point, Sheriff Valenti, you and I are going to have a little talk. You see, I am more than just Michael Guerin's guidance counselor." She withdrew her hand from her pocket and discreetly showed Valenti her FBI badge.

He stared at it, then up at her. She pocketed the badge and gave him a cool smile.

Neither of them noticed Maria, standing a few feet away from them, half-hidden behind a stack of boxes, and watching the entire exchange.

The blonde teenager turned and hurried away, slipping out of sight around the nearest corner. She had left her mother's room a few moments before with the intention of checking on Michael to see if he was awake yet. But she had been distracted by the sight of Valenti and Ms. Topolski talking quietly in a empty part of the hallway, and had gone to investigate.

Her heart was beating frantically as she thought over what she had just discovered. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed a number. She listened to the rings at the other end of the line, then heard Alex's worried voice.

"Maria? Did something happen?"

Maria drew a breath and exhaled it slowly, not quite able to believe what she was about to say. "Alex, it's Ms. Topolski. She's not just a nosy counselor. She's FBI."

* * *

Next Chapter: Uncompromising 

Due: Sun 9/24


	46. Uncompromising

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: The last section of this chapter references the dream that Kyle had in _Crossing the Line_, and Tess' comment about it in _And You Can't Go Back_. And that section also references the picture mentioned at the end of the first chapter, _New Beginnings_. If you don't remember the dream, it might be a good idea to reread the two chapters. If you don't remember about the picture, it is a picture that Tess owns that shows the four aliens (around the age of seven or eight) hanging out together in the desert. It is the only picture currently in existence that gives proof to the fact that they were once friends.

* * *

Chapter Forty-Five: Uncompromising

Michael awoke to a fiery pain in his head. He groaned and rolled to one side. As he did so, his hand jerked against a cord and he glanced down in surprise. A thin needle was inserted into a vein in the top of his hand. a tube wound away from the needle and attacked to a clear plastic bag on a hook a few feet above the bed.

That was when he realized he was in the hospital.

He shook his head, not understanding. His memories were jumbled together, but he was fairly certain that he had done something life threatening. He didn't know what it was, but an irreversible change had been made, and he knew he couldn't take it back.

Then the memories sorted themselves and everything came rushing back in an overwhelming flood of answers.

Hank.

Knowing about their gifts.

Threatening Max and Isabel.

Using his gifts.

Kissing Maria at Homecoming.

Ms. Topolski asking questions.

Hank threatening Max and Isabel.

Using his gifts _against_ Hank.

"Oh, God…"

He had exposed them all. Well, maybe not Tess, but certainly Max and Isabel. And now that he was in the hospital, they would have his blood. They would be able to see that he wasn't human, and they would call the government. Or reports. Or the FBI.

They would throw him into some research laboratory and dissect him like a science project.

He struggled to sit up. He needed to get out of here. And quickly.

To his surprise, no alarms or bells went off when he quickly disconnected himself from the different machines in the room. He glanced down at his bare torso and saw that it was wrapped with bandages. He was wearing long pants, but no shoes. A quick glance through the room revealed a pair of shoes near the door, and a sweatshirt thrown over the back of a chair.

He pulled the sweatshirt on, the leaned over to pick up the shoes, wincing slightly as a sharp pain washed through his chest. He paused for a moment to catch his breath, closing his eyes against the ache, then forced himself to pull the shoes onto his feet.

The pain was almost unbearable now. Burning hot jolts of pain lanced through his stomach, but he forced himself out of the room and into the hallway.

He had to get out of here.

A minute later, when Maria came to Michael's room to check on him, she was surprised and horrified to find the bed empty.

* * *

"But why do you think this will work?" Tess said, frowning slightly at Max.

"Isabel can dream-walk us into Hank's head, right? You understand that much?" Max questioned, his frustration growing. This was the third time he had been forced to repeat his plan, and Tess was still having difficulty grasping the subject.

"Yes," Tess snapped, annoyed. This was the third time Max had explained his plan to her, and he still didn't understand her reservations.

"Once inside Hank's head, I can use my gifts to heal his mind. Then you can use your gifts to alter his memories," Max said, sinking back onto the bed.

Tess shook her head. "But it might not work, Max. You're assuming that you have the ability to heal someone from far away. And that I can mind-warp someone from inside their dreams."

"There is a link between someone's mind and their dreams, right?" Max pointed out. "You should be able to bridge that gap and access their memories. After all, a majority of what we dream about is somehow based on what we think about, and therefore it is connected to our memories."

"Possibly," Tess consented, "but it won't work with your gifts."

"Why not?" Max asked in confusion. If it worked with Tess' abilities, shouldn't it also work with his?

"Because Isabel and I both have mental gifts, whereas you and Michael have physical ones," Tess replied. She ran a hand through her hair and paused, trying to find the words to adequately explain her objection to the plan. "Since my gift controls minds, it is theoretically possible for me to use it from inside someone's head, which is essentially where Isabel would be taking me. But your gift gives you control over someone's body, and we therefore have no reason to believe that you'll be able to use it from inside their mind. Healing is not a mental gift."

"But I'm healing Hank's mind, not his body. And, as you said, Isabel would be taking me into his mind," Max retorted.

Tess nodded thoughtfully. Max had a point, she'd give him that much, but she still wasn't sure that it would work. If it didn't work, they would enter Hank's mind and mess with it, and who knows what kind of damage that could cause. If Max screwed up the healing, Hank could suffer permanent brain damage. If Tess tried to mind-warp him while his brain was already so fragile, she could kill him.

Neither one was a risk she wanted to take.

But, then again, they couldn't risk putting Michael is danger either.

"Do you know who came in the door after you left the doctor's office?" Max asked abruptly, switching the subject.

Tess shook her head. "I didn't stay around long enough to find out," she admitted.

"A silver handprint?" Max asked. It was the fifth or sixth time he had repeated that particular question, and as always, it received the same answer.

"Yes."

"You shouldn't have done that," Max reprimanded, pulling his knees into his chest and resting his forehead on his palms. He was developing a migraine that refused to go away, and he wasn't sure how many more problems he could deal with before he snapped.

Tess said nothing.

Max continued, "Didn't you think through the repercussions? What if you had been a few minutes earlier and the shape-shifter had killed _you_? What if you had been a few minutes later and whoever was behind the door had found you? Do you have any idea how much trouble you could have gotten into?" His voice rose slightly as he continued the tirade of angry questions.

Tess shrugged remained silent.

"God, after all the grief you gave me for healing Liz…"

"This is not the same thing," Tess cut in sharply, the color rising in her face.

"It is exactly the same thing!" Max hissed. He knew even as he said the words that he was walking into dangerous territory, discussing the Hardings with Tess was never a good idea. He also knew that it was counter productive, because they needed to focus on other problems, like how to keep Michael safe. He could yell at Tess about this later, but right now they should focus on Hank.

Except that he wasn't quite willing to let go of the argument.

"No, it isn't," Tess retorted, now flushed a dark crimson. "You healed a girl you barely knew in front of an entire diner, told her and her two friends our secret, and made Jim and a whole bunch of other people very suspicious! I went after a murderer who is a threat to all of us, and who may have killed the Hardings!"

"You acted without thinking," Max argued. "Regardless of the motive, you acted without thinking, which is _exactly_ why you have been so angry with me!"

"I did think!" Tess spat back.

There was a dead silence in the room as Max stared at her in surprise. At last, he asked quietly, "What?"

"I did think," Tess repeated in a softer voice. "Do you honestly believe that I wasn't aware of the risks I was taking? That I didn't weigh out my different options? I thought about what I was doing before I went to find the shape-shifter." She hesitated, then continued, "I know it was stupid. I knew it was stupid before I went looking for him. I didn't act on instinct, I gave it thought first."

"How could you give it thought and actually go through with it?" Max demanded. Tess was smarter than that, and more cautious than that. She shouldn't have done something so careless.

"It was Andrew and Jessica," Tess replied in a barely audible voice.

"We don't know if this shape-shifter is the same person who killed them," Max pointed out gently.

Tess shrugged. "I know. But I've got to start somewhere."

Did every argument always have to end like this? Max groaned inwardly as he realized that he was, yet again, feeling guilty for yelling at Tess. Somehow she always managed to turn the argument onto him, to make him feel bad for blaming her for anything. Somehow everything always managed to be someone else's fault.

But now that his rage at her had quelled slightly, he was able to think more clearly, and recognize the fact that arguing with Tess was a waste of precious time.

He changed the subject, "Look, Tess, I don't think we have much of a choice. I don't have any other plan besides going into Hank's head, and Michael doesn't have much time."

Tess nodded reluctantly, knowing there was truth to Max's words. Before she could say anything, however, Max's cell phone rang, and the alien boy reached for it, glanced at the caller ID, and frowned.

"Alex?" he asked into the phone, his voice wavering slightly. "What's wrong?" He listened for a moment, his eyes widening in shock, and Tess gave him a questioning glance. "What do you mean?" he continued. Then he was silent for a moment, before asking in an unsure voice, "Ms. Topolski's FBI?"

Tess stared at him in shock.

* * *

"Tell me what is going on," Valenti demanded harshly. He crossed his arms over his chest, drew himself to his full height, and glared down at Ms. Topolski.

She merely stared up at him, undisturbed by his authoritative demeanor. "Sheriff Valenti, you are not in the position to demand anything from me. And I am not at liberty to discuss with you the aspects of this classified case."

Valenti shook his head. "Sorry, Ms. Topolski, but you're going to have to do better than that. I can't turn a blind eye to a homicide." He was not intimidated by who Ms. Topolski said she was. This was his town, and he had every right to be involved in the investigation of any criminal activities.

"You don't want to get in the middle of this," Ms. Topolski warned. "The FBI is not some small town government for you to demand cooperation from. You don't want trouble."

"A man is dead," Valenti replied evenly. "I want answers."

"Don't we all," Ms. Topolski muttered to herself.

"Is this somehow related to Michael Guerin? To the shooting at the Crashdown?" Valenti hazarded a guess. When Ms. Topolski didn't reply, he continued forcefully, "This is my town, Ms. Topolski, and I refuse to stand by and let this investigation fall into someone else's hands. I know that I don't want trouble from the FBI, and I have no doubt that working against you would cause me many problems. But I'm willing to take that risk, because this is my town, and I made a commitment to keep the citizens of Roswell safe."

"We are keeping them safe," Ms. Topolski argued.

"If you don't tell me what is going on, what reason do I have to believe that?" Valenti questioned pointedly.

Ms. Topolski nodded thoughtfully. She had obviously underestimated the man in front of her. Most legal and political officials of small towns caved immediately to pressure from the FBI, Sheriff Valenti was clearly not a man willing to do that. "How much do you want to know?" she asked at last.

"Everything," Valenti replied quickly.

Ms. Topolski gave a light laugh and shook her head. "Be reasonable, Sheriff Valenti. There is no way I will tell you everything."

"Dr. Drake is dead?" Sheriff Valenti asked.

"Yes," Ms. Topolski replied with a short nod.

"Who killed him?"

"We don't know," Ms. Topolski said, her brow furrowing slightly. She knew that while she could provide Valenti with some details of the case, she certainly would not be willing to inform him about anything related to their suspicions of aliens.

Although, judging from his earlier question about the shooting and Michael Guerin, he seemed to have some idea of what was going on here.

That could be a problem. She didn't want any of the information to get back to Kyle Valenti or Tess Harding. That was a risk she was simply unwilling to take.

"Alright, Sheriff, I'll make you a deal," she said at last. "I'll tell you what I can about this death and all the ones linked to it," she mentally excluded anything having to do with aliens, "and in exchange, you'll stay out of the investigation."

"There's got to be more of a catch than that," Valenti replied suspiciously.

Ms. Topolski gave a slight smile. "There is," she agreed. "This has to stay completely under wraps. No one can know what happened to Drake. We'll make it seem as though he went on vacation."

"Without telling anyone?" Valenti asked, shaking his head. "No one is going to believe that."

"I'll take care of it," Ms. Topolski replied. Valenti raised an incredulous eyebrow at her, and she gave a smug smile. "Don't look so surprised, Sheriff. I'm the FBI. We know how to cover our tracks."

"What are you going to tell his family?" Valenti asked, after pausing to contemplate Ms. Topolski's previous answer. It sent a shiver down his spine, the way she had so carelessly talked about making people disappear. Did she do this often?

Ms. Topolski narrowed her eyes. "He went on vacation," she repeated coolly.

Valenti frowned in confusion, until comprehension suddenly dawned, and he opened his eyes in shock. "You aren't going to tell them anything?" he spat.

Ms. Topolski sighed. "Obviously we will tell them something. Just not the truth."

"They deserve the truth. They deserve to know that he is dead, to be able to grieve for him," Valenti objected heatedly.

"A lot of people deserve a lot of things they'll never get," Ms. Topolski replied bitterly. "I'm offering you a deal, and you can take it, or leave it. You want answers, and you aren't going to get them from anyone other than us. But if you work against us, Sheriff Valenti… Well, like I said earlier, I am the FBI. We know how to make people disappear."

It was, on no uncertain terms, a threat.

Valenti looked away, unsure of what to say or do.

Ms. Topolski looked at her watch. "I'll give you until five o'clock this evening to think over your answer." She gave him a warning stare. "But I'd advise you to keep your mouth shut during those twelve hours, Sheriff Valenti, or you _won't_ like what will happen to you." She stepped past him, murmuring, "Until five o'clock," and walked away.

* * *

The sun was just rising over the distant horizon when Maria threw the doors of the hospital open and raced down the steps into the parking lot. In her panic at finding Michael's bed empty, she had not thought to call Max, and the idea was only starting to occur to her now.

But he was probably busy with other concerns. Alex had promised to call Max for her and let him know that Ms. Topolski was FBI.

Ms. Topolski was _FBI_.

She couldn't quite wrap her mind around that bit of information, although in retrospect it made sense. She was too nosy to be just a guidance counselor, and the Czechoslovakians had always claimed that anyone investigating anything related to them was probably a threat.

She pulled out her cell phone and flicked the top open, preparing to call Max, when her eyes caught sight of a figure disappearing around the far corner of the parking lot.

Michael.

She ran, her footsteps echoing on the parking lot cement, and a moment later she scurried around the corner and found herself staring into Michael's dangerously narrowed tawny eyes. The tall alien had one hand extended in front of him, prepared to attack.

"Don't shoot… or whatever it is you do…" Maria said quickly, throwing her hands up in defense.

"Maria? What are you doing here?" Michael asked, bewildered. He was holding one hand on his side, as though he was in pain.

Maria frowned in concern, but when he didn't say anything, she explained, "I was supposed to make sure that they didn't take more of your blood or try to take you away or anything."

"What _are_ you talking about?" Michael hissed. Nothing seemed to make sense. How did anyone know that he was at the hospital? Who was going to take him away? And what did Maria mean when she said they would take _more_ of his blood? If they had taken it already, who cared if they took more?

And who exactly was _they_?

"Max and Tess switched your blood," Maria replied, repeating as much of the information as she had been told. "They switched it with Alex's. And I was there to make sure that no one tried to do anymore tests," Maria explained in a rush.

Michael shook his head. So they had kept his blood out of the wrong hands. But what about Hank? What about using his gifts?

"Where's Hank?" Michael asked, dreading the answer.

Maria shook her head. "I don't really know anything else," she said slowly. Neither Alex nor Max had been incredibly forthcoming on the details of what had happened. It occurred to her then that she didn't even know why Michael had been in the hospital in the first place, or why Hank would be involved. "What does Hank have to do with anything?"

Michael shook his head and looked away. He needed to figure out where Hank was, and figure out what he knew. Who knew how much danger they were all in now that he had so stupidly exposed them all?

Hank was probably still in the hospital, though, Michael realized as he remembered that he had thrown Hank into the plaster wall. He wondered how badly his foster father was hurt.

To take care of Hank, he'd have to go back into the hospital, but he couldn't do that without possibly running into people he didn't want to see. Like the doctors, or Sheriff Valenti.

"What do you know?" Michael demanded finally, turning to give Maria his full attention. As he stared at her white face and pale eyes, he couldn't help but remember kissing her. Shoving away the image, he tried to focus on the task at hand, but his mind kept betraying him and returning to thoughts of the Homecoming dance.

"Not much," Maria replied with a shrug. "Just that you were brought here, they switched your blood, and Ms. Topolski's FBI." Michael went completely still, and Maria realized too late that she shouldn't have said that. Cursing inwardly, she continued, "You should go back to the hospital so that no one gets suspicious about why you left. Max seemed to think he would be able to handle the other issues."

But Michael wasn't about to be distracted by Maria's suggestion. "What do you mean Ms. Topolski is FBI?" he asked, his eyes boring into hers.

"I… I overheard her talking to Sheriff Valenti…" Maria said hesitantly, suddenly afraid of the furious look in Michael's eyes.

"How much does she know?" Michael asked slowly.

Maria shrugged again. "I don't know. I don't know anything else, just that she is FBI." There was another pause, then Maria said slowly, "You should go back to the hospital. Their going to get worried if they see you gone."

Michael shook his head, his eyes dark with frustration and anger. "I can't go back," he replied, his voice tinged with bitterness.

"But Max said…"

"I don't care what Max said," Michael snarled. "If I go back, they'll _find_ me." He had used his gifts against Hank. If Hank didn't turn him over to the FBI, he would, at the very least, be charged with attacking his foster father. After all, he had thrown Hank into the wall with enough force to kill him.

Oh, _God_…

Was Hank even still alive?

Would he go to jail? If he didn't go to jail, he still wouldn't be able to stay here. He'd be moved to a different foster home. No one in Roswell would take him, he'd have to leave the town. How far away would they force him to move?

Or would Ms. Topolski come for him and just throw him into some sort of cage and perform experiments on his like a lab rat for the rest of his life?

It was better if he left now, on his own terms. It would keep Max and Isabel out of trouble. It would keep them safe. And he could survive on his owns. He could use his powers to change twenties into hundreds and live off the few spare dollars he had saved up for emergencies just like this.

"Look, at least talk to Max," Maria suggested, pulling out her cell phone. "At least hear what he has to say before you make any decisions."

Michael shook his head. "I don't have time," he objected, and turned to walk away.

"So that's it? You're just going to leave?" Maria demanded incredulously. Somehow, the fact that he was willing to walk away from everything felt like a betrayal. How could he do something so… stupid? So selfish? "You're going to leave us with all these questions to answer? Valenti is going to want to know where you went, and suspicion will fall on Max and Isabel. Not to mention Ms. Topolski and whatever she knows. And you're gong to leave us to deal with all this on our own?"

"I am trying to keep them safe," Michael hissed, his face suffused with color at Maria's accusation. "You wouldn't understand any of it, but I am a threat to them!"

"Actually, Ms. Topolski and Valenti are the threats," Maria retorted.

"Don't act like just because you know our secret all of a sudden you understand what we are going through," Michael snapped.

Maria opened her mouth to respond, then closed it, finding she had nothing to say. She was furious, but the words wouldn't come out, they were trapped in her throat. She swallowed and looked away, finally managing to say, "Maybe I don't know what you are going through." Her voice grew forceful as she continued, "But I do know that you're not running away because you think it will keep Isabel and Max safe. You're running away because you're too cowardly to face these problems." She paused, noting the fury in Michael's face, and wondering how hard he had to struggle to keep from slapping her right then. "Ms. Topolski is FBI!" she finished. "We have no idea what she knows, and you want to leave us to deal with this while you go run off to some…"

"Then let's find out," Michael cut into Maria's rant.

"What?"

"Let's find out what she knows," Michael repeated. Maria stared at him blankly, and he said, "Do you know where Ms. Topolski lives?"

"Yes, but…"

"And she's at the hospital right now?"

"Yes, but…"

"So then let's go," Michael suggested. Maria still looked doubtful and he said, "Look, I'm not saying I'm going to stay in Roswell. But you're right, I should find out what Ms. Topolski knows about us before I leave. So I'm going now. You can come with me, or you can stay here."

He turned and walked away, and against her better judgment, Maria followed.

* * *

Mr. Evans stared at Michael's empty hospital room and sighed. He had known that Michael would be somewhat of a flight risk, that was one of the reasons he had wanted to get to the hospital as soon as possible. He just hadn't thought that Michael would leave this quickly.

The more he thought about it, though, the more he realized that of course Michael wouldn't have stayed around. After having been spectacularly failed by the Child Protection Services for ten years, he had little reason to think that they would do anything for him now.

But a judge would look at this differently. A judge would think that Michael fleeing was a sign of a guilty conscious.

And was it? Could part of the reason he had left be that he was afraid of the repercussions of what he had done to Hank?

Too many questions, not enough answers, and Mr. Evans knew that they were running out of time. He needed to find Michael and talk to him. They needed to come up with a story, some reasoning for why Michael had acted the way he did. And they had to do it quickly, because the longer they waited, the less likely it was he would be able to help Michael.

And if he couldn't help the boy, Michael would be forced to leave Roswell… or sent to prison.

* * *

Kyle peered into his father's room and frowned at the empty bed. He turned and took a few steps down the hallway towards Tess' room. The door was partially open, and he could see that her bed was also empty. The house was quiet, both of his family members gone.

Where were they? His father might have been called away on some sort of work related problem, but Tess? It was five in the morning, where could she possibly be?

He walked further into her room, glancing around curiously. The bed was slightly rumpled. He walked over to the window and peered out at the street. The family only had two cars, the one that his father used, and the one that he and Tess shared. The second of the two cars was gone.

Had she gone somewhere with Chris? He pondered this for a moment, but it didn't seem that likely. After all, it wasn't as though Jim every really paid much attention to whether or not Tess was home on time, so if she had been planning on staying out later with Chris, she simply wouldn't have returned to the house with him.

Kyle shrugged to himself and turned to leave. As he did, he noticed the second drawer of her desk was pulled open. He subconsciously moved towards it, planning on closing it, when a picture in the drawer caught his eye. He pulled it out slowly.

It showed Tess, Max and Isabel Evans, and Michael Guerin standing in the desert, holding hands. They were young, maybe seven or eight. He had some vague recollection of Tess being friends with the other three a long time ago, but she certainly didn't hang out with them now. Why would she have still held on to the picture?

Unbidden, the memory of his previous dream-memory came to mind, and he recalled how, when he had asked Tess about it, she had said something about having to eat pasta. And he had never mentioned pasta…

He was paranoid. He told himself, over and over, that he was paranoid. But he couldn't quite convince himself that there wasn't anything else to the story. He couldn't quite convince himself that Tess _wasn't_ hiding something.

He had practically grown up with Tess. She might have been adopted, but she was, for all intents and purposes, his sister. He trusted her more than anyone else in the world, except maybe his father.

But staring at the picture, remembering her comment about his dream, and thinking of all the times when she would only half-answer a question or evade a topic, he had to wonder how much he really knew about her.

* * *

Next Chapter: Crossroads

Due: Sun 10/1


	47. Crossroads

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: It will be important in this chapter, so I thought I should point it out; the past few chapters have all taken place over the course of only one night, and no one has told Liz about what is going on, so she thinks that everything is normal.

* * *

Chapter Forty-Six: Crossroads

Michael glanced back and forth along the street, deciding that there wasn't anyone around to be worried about, then looked back at the apartment in front of him. Ms. Topolski did not appear to live in a particularly good part of town, and that confused him. If she was FBI, she certainly had the money to rent an apartment other than the one she was currently living in.

He walked up to the apartment building and let himself in, and Maria followed quickly. She slipped past him into the hall. To the right of the door was a sign with all the names of the residents of the apartment building and their apartment number. Maria ran her finger down it until she found the name she was looking for, then turned to Michael and said, "She's on the second floor."

"Let's go," Michael said grimly, walking briskly towards the stairs and wondering what they would find in her apartment.

Maria followed him in silence, staring about the slightly dilapidated building. She was tired, it was still so early in the morning, and she hadn't gotten sleep the night before. Memories of the dance floated around in her mind, competing with memories of her mother's revelation.

She had to talk to her mother, she knew she did. She just… she just didn't want to.

"Here we are," Michael said, stopping and nodding to one of the doors. He gave a quick look around the hallway to check for security cameras, but there weren't any. Then he placed his hand on the doorknob and pressed slightly with his gifts, feeling the lock turn under his palm. The door slid open, swinging inwards and revealing a darkened room.

Maria and Michael traded glances, then stepped into the room. Michael flicked on the light switch and blinked as the light flooded the room. As his eye slowly adjusted to the brightness, he said, "Alright, let's start looking."

"What are we looking for?" Maria asked in a hushed voice.

Michael shrugged. "I don't know," he replied calmly, "but we'll know when we find it." He walked further into the room. To his left, one door was partially open, revealing a bedroom. In front of him, at the back of the room, was another door. It was closed.

He walked to the door and pushed on it. It wasn't locked, and swung open easily under his hand. He frowned at the dimly lit room, realizing it was an office.

Maria approached him and peered around his shoulder, shoving a few loose strands of hair out of her eyes in the process. "Anything she knows is going to be in this room."

Michael frowned and shook his head. "Maybe," he agreed, "but she won't have left it lying about." He walked over to the desk and shoved a few of the files aside, before one caught his eyes. It was a manila file folder, and the tab was marked in large black letters with a name. Tess Harding.

Michael picked it up, and noticed that the one below it was labeled Michael Guerin. He hunted around a bit more before finding files for Max, Isabel, and Liz as well. It took as though Ms. Topolski was suspicious of everyone except Maria and Alex.

Maria reached for Liz's file and flipped it open. She read the first page, her eyes widening in surprise. Although she knew that the aliens, Tess and Michael especially, were worried about someone discovering what had happened to Liz, she had never really expected that anyone would be suspicious about the shooting. It appeared as though she was wrong, and the aliens' concerns were justified.

She held the file out to Michael and whispered, "She knows about the shooting."

Michael snatched the file from Maria's hand and stared at it, unable to truly understand what he was reading. This was much worse than he had originally thought.

Maria glanced at the file again and pointed to something Ms. Topolski had written near the bottom of the page. "What does this mean?" she asked.

_Any physical changes to subject not yet confirmed._

Michael bit his lip thoughtfully, then replied, "She thinks that something might have happened to Liz? Somehow she was changed?"

"How is that possible?" Maria demanded harshly, suddenly worried for her friend. "I mean… Liz is human. She's not… she's not one of you. So there aren't any… I mean, nothing should have changed… Right?"

Michael didn't answer right away. The silence was tense as Maria waited for some sort of explanation, but when Michael spoke, he changed the subject. "Keep a watch at the window in case someone comes back."

"What?" Maria snapped, her tone hostile. "Why do I have to be the lookout?"

Michael rolled his eyes and replied impatiently, "Because someone has to, and I'm busy looking at her stuff." Maria opened her mouth to argue, but Michael stepped past her, further into the room, and she closed her mouth and settled for glaring at him before walking over to the nearest window.

Michael pulled open the closet door and stared at a bookshelf. It was filled with conspiracy theorists, their biography, their writings, their suspicions.

"You know, any babysitter worth her salt knows the best place to look for information is the trashcan," Maria suggested from the window.

Michael turned and gave her a look which said quite clearly that he didn't want her advice, but he walked over to the recycling bin near the desk anyway. Reaching down, he flipped through the few pieces of paper that had been discarded. His eyes fell onto a torn fragment of paper with a phone number on it, and he picked it up curiously.

"What is that?" Maria questioned.

"Phone number. Local," Michael replied, and Maria walked over to join him. When Michael made no move to do anything, she tugged the paper from his hand and reached for Ms. Topolski's phone.

"What are you doing?"

"Do you want to know who's on the other end of this number?" Maria asked in annoyance, rolling her eyes at Michael's question. Michael hesitated, then shrugged, and Maria continued to dial the number. Michael leaned in closer, placing his ear near the phone so that he could hear the ringing along the line.

Maria shivered suddenly, feeling Michael's breath on her neck. He was so incredibly close to her at that moment, and her thought wandered to the dance… to their kiss…

"Agent Pierce."

The sharp voice jolted Maria back to her senses, and she quickly hung up the phone. Turning to Michael, she asked curiously, "Who's Pierce?"

Michael shook his head. "I don't know." He glanced around the room again, his eyes landing on a file cabinet near the closet. "Keep a look out at the window again," he instructed, not even bothering to ask politely, as he trudged to the cabinet.

He tugged on the top drawer, and found that it was locked. Using his gifts, he broke the lock and pulled the drawer open. It was filled with stacks of papers, each labeled with different dates, times, and events. None of it looked relevant to the four aliens, so he shut the drawer and moved on to the next one.

In the third drawer, he found a file labeled Atherton. He grabbed the file and opened it, about to read through it when he noticed that Maria was no longer by the window. She was standing over the desk, flipping through a file.

"What are you doing?" Michael hissed.

Maria looked up and dropped the file onto the desk. "Nothing," she said quickly. Too quickly.

"What was in the file?"

"Nothing. I mean, it's Liz's… I just wanted to see what else it said… because Liz is my friend and I don't… I mean, I'm worried… you know…" Maria stopped, realizing that she was babbling. The color drained slowly from her face as Michael crossed the room.

"You're a horrible liar," Michael said calmly and he reached for the file, dropping the information on Atherton onto the desk in the process. His eyes flicked to the name printed on the tab of the file, then up at Maria, then back to the name.

She had been reading his file.

He opened it and flipped quickly through the pages to the last one. Maria made an unsuccessful grab at the file, but he stepped away and said, "What did you see in here?"

"You found something on Atherton?" Maria asked curiously, switching her gaze to the file Michael had dropped onto the desk.

But Michael was not to be distracted from his own file, from the information on the last page…

…_would be a considerable benefit to our investigation if the group was no longer cohesive… foster home problems make it probable that… has a record… other foster parents in Roswell won't accept… subject may have to leave… _

"She did this? She talked to Child Protection Services? She's the reason Hank thought I was leaving? She's the reason…"

Maria, having no idea what an appropriate response to that revelation would be, said instead, "Michael, we should go." Michael didn't reply, just looked at the open file in his hands, and Maria repeated more urgently, "Michael! Are you listening to me?" But Michael was just staring off into space, and Maria exclaimed in frustration, "Spaceboy!"

Michael jerked his face her in direction and frowned. "Spaceboy?" he echoed, confused.

"Got your attention, didn't it?" Maria replied pointedly. "Come on, we need to get out of here."

Michael nodded mutely, and dropped his file onto the desk. He hesitated, then grabbed the file on Atherton and followed Maria from the room.

* * *

Tess climbed in the window of her room and ran a hand through her hair, then slowly rolled her aching shoulders. She turned to close the window shut, and just as she did so, she caught sight of a reflection in the glass.

Whirling around, she noticed that Kyle was standing in the doorway of the room, staring at her in confusion and suspicion.

"Do you have a thing against doors?"

Tess flushed and replied quickly, "I didn't want to wake you or Jim." She really didn't need an interrogation by Kyle right now, not after having been informed that Michael was in the hospital, not after having discovered the doctor's dead body, not after having learned that Ms. Topolski was FBI.

"Well, Dad isn't here," Kyle replied with a shrug.

"Oh. I guess I didn't have to come in this way then," Tess said slowly. She turned and locked the window, then walked over to her bed and sank into it. Wanting to divert Kyle's attention from her strange late-night activities, she said accusingly, "You were a real jerk to Trudy at the dance."

Kyle shrugged. "I just said the truth."

"That she has no taste in style or fashion?" Tess spat. "Grow up, Kyle. Pam goaded you into that. She just wants to cause trouble, and you let her."

"What would she possibly have to gain from that?" Kyle asked mockingly. "It isn't like it's going to make her suddenly a part of your group."

Tess rolled her eyes. Sometimes boys were so oblivious to everything. Pam didn't want to be part of the popular clique, she wanted to cause trouble for them. That was her main goal at school, to cause as much drama as humanly possible. And so far she had done a spectacular job of it.

"Where'd you go?" Kyle continued, nodding towards the window.

"Out," Tess replied icily.

"When did you get so secretive?" Kyle questioned suspiciously.

"When did you get so nosy?" Tess rejoined.

Kyle walked over to her and dropped a photograph on the bed. "Here, this belongs to you."

Tess picked it up curiously, and frowned. Her eyes widened slightly as she realized it was the picture of the four aliens in the desert. She ran her thumb over the slightly frayed edges and shook her head, first in denial, then in anger.

"You went through my stuff?"

"Hardly," Kyle replied dismissively. "I came into your room to look for you, and was surprised to find you gone. I caught sight of the picture, and wondered about it…" He let the sentence drift, staring at Tess with a scrutinizing gaze. "Liz thinking I had stolen her journal… thinking that I had given it to Dad… And the way that she, and now Maria and Alex, are always wrapped up in something with the Evans… Dad investigating Guerin…" Kyle sighed and rubbed the back of his head absently. "Something's going on, Tess, and I'm starting to think you might have more of an idea of it than you're letting on."

"I don't know what you are talking about," Tess replied coolly, her face tinged pink with anger.

"And that dream I had… I never told you that I ended up eating pasta. But you said that you didn't remember the incident, so how did you know about that…?"

"Paranoid, much?" Tess shot back.

"Probably," Kyle agreed readily, "but something is going on, Tess. I'm not stupid, I _know_ something is, and I know that somehow, Dad is involved in it. And you are too."

Tess stared at Kyle for a moment, wondering what to say next. She had always known it was only a matter of time before Kyle started asking questions, but she had still hoped that it would be further off in the future, when they had more of a handle on all their other problems.

"See, I don't really care what's going on," Kyle continued. "Whatever trouble the Evans, Guerin, and Liz want to get themselves into, that's fine. So really, I've only got one question for you."

Tess looked up at him expectantly, her stomach twisting with dread.

"If you are somehow involved in this, and Dad is somehow involved in this, are working with him… or against him?"

* * *

"What do you mean, Michael's not there?" Max demanded worriedly, holding the phone to his ear.

"I meant what I said, son," Mr. Evans replied. "He's not here, and I don't know where he went. Do you have any ideas? Because he needs to be found, and quickly."

"Um… Let me call around. I'll call you back in a minute, okay?" Max hung up on his father and shook his head in confusion. Michael was gone. That begged the question, had he walked out of the hospital on his own, or had someone forced him out. But… if someone had forced him out, Maria would have informed them of that… wouldn't she? But then, wouldn't she have told him if Michael walked out of his own also?

Max quickly dialed Maria's phone number and listened to the ringing on the other end of the line. Isabel had gone to her room after talking to her parents, and Max didn't know what she was doing now. Tess had left about half and hour ago, and she would probably have reached her house by now. Alex was still at home, and as no one had woken up Liz, she was probably asleep as well.

That meant that Michael and Maria were the only ones unaccounted for.

"Maxwell."

Max started at Michael's voice. It took a moment for him to remember that he had called Maria's phone, but when he did he asked quickly, "You're with Maria?"

"Yes."

"Where are you? My dad went to the hospital to talk to you, and you were gone. Do you have any idea how much trouble you could be in?" Max hissed.

"No," Michael replied unemotionally. "Actually, I don't, because I have no idea what happened after I attacked Hank."

Max sighed and closed his eyes. "Hank's in the hospital," he said slowly. "Severe blood loss, maybe brain trauma…" He heard Michael's sharp intake of breath, then he rushed on, "One of the neighbors claimed that you started it…"

"I didn't."

"I _know_. But the Sheriff doesn't. My dad doesn't. A judge won't."

"I'm in legal trouble?"

"Maybe. That's why you need to get back to the hospital, so that my Dad can talk to you."

Max could hear Michael's bitter laugh at that comment, then the taciturn alien replied, "Or I should just get out of town, Maxwell."

"No!" Max practically screamed. He lowered his voice, afraid of drawing his mother's attention from the floor below, and said, "Look, I talked to Tess. Later today, when Hank is more stable, we're going to try to mind-warp him so that he has a different memory of what happened… Look, we'll take care of everything, just go back to the hospital."

"I can't do that, Maxwell." There was a pause, then Michael said, "I need your car."

"What?"

"I need your car," Michael repeated. "I can take it just to the state border, and I'll call from a pay phone to tell you were I left it. But that's probably my fastest way out of here."

"Michael, are you listening to a single word I'm saying? You need to get back to the hospital," Max argued in frustration. Why wouldn't the stubborn alien just listen to him for once? They could take care of everything, if only Michael would agree to return…

Of course, even as he thought that, he knew it wasn't true. They weren't sure if they could take care of everything, and Michael would still eventually have to face a judge. And God only knew what the judge would say when he saw what had happened to Hank.

But they had a better chance at solving this together, as a group, than if he just fled.

"Maxwell, the Sheriff is interested in me. The FBI is interested in me. If I leave, then they'll leave you alone," Michael was saying, his voice calm, but filled with conviction.

"And what if they catch you?" Max demanded.

"They won't catch me if I'm too far away," was Michael's reply. There was a pause, then Michael said, "Look, I'm leaving Roswell no matter what. You can help me, or not. Your choice."

"Michael…"

"Come on, Maxwell. Clock's ticking. Are you going to lend me your car or not?"

Max closed his eyes, prayed he was doing the right thing, and replied, "Alright. Come knock on my window when you get here."

Max clicked the cover of the cell phone shut and wondered whether or not Michael would ever speak to him after this. But he didn't really have a choice, he reasoned… they couldn't let Michael leave.

He dialed a phone number. A voice picked up after the second ring.

"Max?"

"Dad, I just spoke to Michael. He's leaving Roswell. I told him… I told him he could use my car. He'll be here soon. Can you get here first?"

"I'm on my way home. You did the right thing, son."

Max ran a hand through his hair and thought of the betrayed expression he knew would appear on Michael's face when the other alien realized that Mr. Evans was there, waiting for him. And he couldn't help but think that Michael certainly wouldn't believe that this was the right thing.

* * *

Liz woke to the sun slipping in through the glass of her bedroom window. She groaned and shoved the covers back to the end of the bed. It was early, maybe six in the morning, and she had forgotten to pull the blinds the night before, so the sunlight was waking her up far earlier than she wanted.

She trudged to the window and unceremoniously yanked the curtains closed, blocking out the sun. She wondered briefly if any of her friends were awake, but dismissed the idea. It was too early in the morning for anyone to be up by choice, and she didn't want to call them for fear of waking them up.

But now that she had gotten out of bed, she was having a difficult time going back to sleep. She lay down in the bed and pulled the covers up around her chin, but the warmth of the blankets couldn't quite send her to sleep.

Finally, she gave up trying to sleep and got out of bed again. She tugged on sweats and running shoes, fastened her hair into a ponytail, and headed down the stairs. Once outside, she blinked in the morning light, and took off at a slow paced jog.

She didn't pay much attention to where she was running, allowing her steps to guide her. About twenty minutes into the jog, however, she found herself standing outside of Maria's house, staring up at the dark windows.

It was too early in the morning to knock on the door, she didn't want to wake Maria if the other girl was still sleeping. She turned to leave, and suddenly paused, a frown appearing briefly on her face as she realized that Maria's car was gone.

She ran a hand through her hair, the perfectly straight strands falling through her fingers, and yawned. Maybe Maria was at the hospital? That seemed likely. She still didn't know what had come out of the talk that Maria had had with Amy earlier, but since Maria had been in a sour mood all through dinner, Liz could only assume that Amy's revelation had not been a pleasant one.

The hospital was further away, but Liz decided to head over there anyway. Now was as good a time as any to see what was going on with her best friend.

* * *

Maria pushed open the door to her mother's room and was surprised to see that Amy was awake. She paused for a moment, startled. She had been hoping that her mother would be asleep so that she would have more time to deal with her mother's revelation. Or more time to pretend to be dealing with it while in all honesty she was doing her best to ignore what she had learned. But Amy was staring at her with a penetrating gaze, and Maria walked slowly into the room, letting the door swing shut behind her.

"How was Homecoming?" Amy asked mildly. Her face was much more pale than it had been the last time Maria had seen her, and Maria wondered if that was in any way due to the conversation they had had before.

Maria frowned as she thought of the dinner, the kiss with Michael, learning that Michael was in the hospital and Alex had already switched blood, and that Ms. Topolski was FBI. She gave a shrug. "Uneventful, really," she replied.

"Who was it you were going with?" Amy asked.

Maria took a few steps further into the room until she was standing at the very edge of her mother's bed. "Alex," she replied.

Amy nodded slowly, but the shooting pains in her neck made it difficult, and she stopped the movement abruptly. She reached out with one hand towards Maria, but Maria pretended not to notice, and crossed her own arms over her chest, glancing at the walls around them.

Amy sighed and let her hand drop back to her side. "We need to talk, Maria," she said firmly.

Maria flinched and glanced briefly at her mother's face. "Why?" she asked, almost in dread. "Is there more to the story?"

"I love you," Amy said emphatically.

"And you loved Sean," Maria replied before she could stop to think over the words. "You loved him, and now you two are complete strangers. This is… this changes everything."

"No, it doesn't," Amy argued. "Sean was just a man I was in love with at one point in my life. You're my _daughter_." She reached up and rubbed her eyes wearily. "Besides," she continued, "Sean has changed a lot in the past sixteen years, and I barely recognize him. He's forgotten things, also."

"What do you mean?" Maria asked, eager to keep the subject on anything besides her possibly soon to be destroyed relationship with her mother.

Amy shrugged. "Something about his eyes is different," she said slowly, diffidently. "And… He forgot that they never… caught the m-man who… did this." She stumbled over her words, then gave a hesitant smile. "A lot changes in sixteen years, Maria. I just thought he would have remembered that."

Maria shrugged and took a seat on the edge of the bed. "What are you going to do? I mean, about the Sheriff…?"

"I don't know," Amy admitted with a bittersweet smile. "It seems like no matter what I do, I'm going to end up hurting someone I love." She stared up into Maria's eyes and blinked back a few tears. Maria shifted, uncomfortable, and looked down at her own hands.

"Mom…"

"I love you. I love you so much," Amy whispered, tears burning at the back of her eyes. "Don't you see that?"

"How can you?" Maria demanded, her voice harsher than she had intended. "How can you love me if I am just a reminder of everything that went wrong? You lost so much because of me."

"No!" Amy retorted emphatically. "I lost so much because of that man. _You_ didn't do this, Maria. You're not to blame. I love you, regardless of who your biological father is."

Maria stood up and backed away. She took a few deep breaths, shaking her head back and forth as she stared at her mother. She could almost believe what Amy was saying, almost believe that the circumstances around her conception didn't matter, and yet… She couldn't. She just couldn't accept it. It was too hard to understand, too hard to comprehend that this knew knowledge wouldn't change anything.

"I have to go," she said quickly, turning and leaving the room.

Amy watched her daughter go, the tears slipping out from her eyes, and wondered if she could ever fix their relationship.

* * *

Max sat at the kitchen table, staring at Isabel. She returned his gaze with quiet resolve, but he could see the tiny fissures in her composure. She was terrified.

Michael had come to the house a few moments ago, and Mr. Evans had been waiting for him. Max and Isabel had been hiding in the kitchen for all of the exchange between their father and their friend, and had only heard bits and pieces of the argument that ensued.

From what they had heard, it was going to be a long time before Michael forgave any of them for this.

Somehow, Mr. Evans had managed to convince Michael to join him in the living room. They had been arguing their for the better part of a half-hour. Michael's gruff voice was raised in anger against Mr. Evans calmer words.

Max looked down at the table top, feeling the smooth wood underneath his palm. Isabel reached out to place her hand over his, and he looked up, giving her a brief smile. Neither of them spoke, just sat in silence, listening to the rise and fall of the quarrelling voices outside the kitchen door.

* * *

"I don't care what you think," Michael hissed. "I could have been out of this city by now if Max hadn't dragged you into this."

"Max is worried about you," Mr. Evans replied in a soft tone. "Running doesn't solve anything. He's just trying to help."

"He can't help," Michael spat. "And you can't either."

"If you tell me what happened, I can figure out a way to keep you out of jail and in Roswell," Mr. Evans countered. "But if you leave now, you'll be a fugitive. That means you will _never_ be able to come back."

Michael gave an ironic laugh. "Why would I want to come back?" he asked pointedly, staring around the house. "I've got nothing keeping me here."

"What about Max and Isabel?" Mr. Evans pressed.

Michael rolled his eyes and shot back, "What about them?"

Mr. Evans sighed. It was a circular argument, and they had been going around in circles for a while. Michael refused to talk about what had happened last night, refused to listen to Mr. Evans advice. Mr. Evans, for his part, tried his best to talk some sense into the stubborn boy, but Michael would not be swayed from his decision.

Although Mr. Evans had rarely been involved in cases that related to foster children, he had taken a few clients who had been abused by family members or their boyfriends. Violent crime was rare in Roswell, but not unheard of, and it most often took the form of domestic violence.

Talking to Michael was like talking to one of those clients. Bitter and scared, refusing to believe that anything could be done to help them, wanting to run as far away as possible, as though they could somehow outrun the past.

Mr. Evans knew it wasn't that easy.

But he could find no other way of getting through to the boy in front of him, so he tried one last desperate bid. He shrugged, almost apologetically. "If you want to run, then run," he said finally. "I'm not going to stop you. If you think you can evade the police, if you want to spend the rest of your life as a fugitive without friends or family, then by all means, leave."

Michael stood up quickly. "If you think using reverse psychology is going to work on me…"

"I don't," Mr. Evans cut him off. "I'm not trying it on you, I am being serious. If you want out of Roswell, I won't stop you." He narrowed his eyes for a moment, then said, "But I do have one condition to that."

"And what's that?" Michael asked skeptically.

Mr. Evans nodded to the kitchen, where he knew Max and Isabel were still waiting. "Go tell Max and Isabel goodbye."

Michael stared at the kitchen door, then back at Mr. Evans, then down at the floor. Whatever he was thinking, it wasn't showing on his features, but Mr. Evans could tell by the younger man's hesitation that he was torn about what to do.

"Did you know that the majority of parents who walk out on their children do it either while their children are asleep or at school?" Mr. Evans asked conversationally. Michael's dark eyes darted to Mr. Evans, and the lawyer continued, "It's a lot easier to leave when you don't have to see the people you're abandoning, isn't it?"

* * *

Next Chapter: Where My Loyalties Lie

Due: Sun 10/8


	48. Where My Loyalties Lie

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: So… it's been a few weeks since I was supposed to update. Funny thing about computers, they can be really annoying. They can crash, they can refuse to connect to the internet, they can lose things you've written… Anyway, I'm posting two chapters now to make up for the long disappearance.

* * *

Chapter Forty-Seven: Where My Loyalties Lie

Previously:

"_If you want out of Roswell, I won't stop you." Mr. Evans narrowed his eyes for a moment, then said, "But I do have one condition to that."_

"_And what's that?" Michael asked skeptically._

_Mr. Evans nodded to the kitchen, where he knew Max and Isabel were still waiting. "Go tell Max and Isabel goodbye." _

_Michael stared at the kitchen door, then back at Mr. Evans, then down at the floor. Whatever he was thinking, it wasn't showing on his features, but Mr. Evans could tell by the younger man's hesitation that he was torn about what to do._

"_Did you know that the majority of parents who walk out on their children do it either while their children are asleep or at school?" Mr. Evans asked conversationally. Michael's dark eyes darted to Mr. Evans, and the lawyer continued, "It's a lot easier to leave when you don't have to see the people you're abandoning, isn't it?"_

* * *

It only took Liz a brief glance at her best friend to realize that something was wrong.

"Maria?"

Maria was standing in the hallway outside her mother's room, staring blankly at the door. Her face was pale, accentuating the dark circles under her eyes. She turned at the sound of Liz's voice, and gave a wan smile.

"Are you okay?" Liz asked, approaching her friend. "Have you been here all night? I thought you went home after the dance?" The hallway was mostly silent and empty, and her footsteps echoed on the linoleum floor.

"I did," Maria said softly. "But then I had to come back." She wiped a hand across her eyes and swallowed back a sob. The last she had spoken to Michael, he had informed her, shortly and firmly, that he was leaving Roswell, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. She supposed he was gone by now, and the thought took her breath away. She couldn't deal with this, not right now. She thought she had meant something to him, and he had so carelessly and casually discarded that.

But maybe she was just a fool for thinking that. Maybe she had read too much into that kiss. Maybe… maybe he didn't think of her as anything besides just another person who knew his secret.

She turned and looked back at the door to her mother's room. When she was much younger, she used to pray that her father would come and sweep her away into some exciting adventure. He'd be someone famous and handsome and kind, and he'd tell her every day that he had wanted to stay with her and her mother, that leaving them had all been one mistake. As she got older, she stopped thinking about that dream as much, but she still sometimes wondered if she would ever get the chance to meet the person who had helped to bring her into being.

Now she realized she would not only never get to know her father, but she also never wanted to know him.

"What happened?" Liz pressed, reaching out and placing a hand on Maria's shoulder.

"My mom… and Michael… and the FBI… Ms. Topolski… Alex… blood…" Maria whispered, her words halted.

Liz stiffened and asked in a hushed but panicked tone, "What happened? Michael, Alex… are they okay?

Maria sighed and, glancing around to make sure that they were alone, she began to explain what had happened that night.

* * *

"So this is your idea of helping me?"

Max glanced at the doorway to the kitchen, were Michael stood, his lanky form leaning against the doorframe. Next to Max, Isabel raised her eyes as well, meeting Michael's smoldering gaze.

"I was just…"

"Just what?" Michael spat. "Doing what _you_ thought was best without consulting anyone else?"

"Leaving Roswell isn't the answer!"

Michael rolled his eyes. "Maybe not for you, but it is for me. It's always been an answer for me, I only stuck around because you didn't want to go."

"Michael!" Isabel hissed, shooting a worried glance towards the living room. She was fairly certain her father was still there, and if he was listening to the conversation, she didn't want anyone to say anything that would make him suspicious.

Michael ignored her, staring solely at Max.

"So this is it?" Max asked, standing slowly and glaring at the other alien. Michael was taller and stronger than Max, but Max had no intention of backing down on this one. "You're just going to leave?"

"Yes," Michael replied icily. He turned and walked out of the kitchen.

Isabel exchanged a glance with Max, then stood up and followed Michael through the door. Max remained in the kitchen, and as she passed her father, Isabel sent him a silent plea to leave the room and let her talk to Michael alone. Mr. Evans seemed to understand, because he disappeared into the kitchen, most likely to talk to Max.

Isabel stared around the living room. She and Michael were alone.

"Michael, please, think about what you are doing," Isabel begged.

Michael stared at her for a moment, then said, "Izzie, I have thought about it. I've been thinking about it for the past several hours. This is the right decision."

"For who?" Isabel demanded. "Us or you?"

"Everyone," Michael growled. He turned around and walked towards the front door. He placed a hand on the doorknob and turned to look back at Isabel. "I'll call you when I get somewhere safe." He opened the door.

"No!" Isabel snapped suddenly, grabbing Michael's arm and preventing him from leaving the house. She yanked backwards, and Michael stumbled slightly, dropping his grip on the doorknob. The door swung shut with a resounding thud, and Michael spun around to glare at Isabel angrily.

"Isabel, let go!"

Is Isabel had not known that Michael would never lay a hand on her, she might have been afraid of the look in his eyes. He was shaking with pent up rage, his breathing heavy, his eyes narrowed dangerously.

But she wasn't afraid of him. She was too angry to be afraid. Her own fury welled up within her as she looked at him, and for a moment, all she wanted to do was grab him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him.

"You do not get to walk away, Michael!" she hissed, her voice dropping into low tones in an effort to keep her parents from hearing what she was saying. "Not after everything we've been through together. Not after discovering who we were together. Not after meeting Tess together. Not after practicing our gifts together. Not after the shooting, or your foray into Valenti's office, or the road trip to Marathon you decided to take. Not with everything that is going on. You do _not_ get to walk away!" A few stray tears slipped out from her eyes, but she blinked them away quickly.

"I am doing this to protect you, Isabel," Michael retorted, shaking his head. Why couldn't she understand that this was necessary? "Do you really think this is a decision I'd have made on a whim? I thought about it, and this is the best course of action. It keeps you safe!"

"Why do I care if I'm _safe_?" Isabel spat. "Why does that mean anything if you aren't here?" She reached up with her other arm and grabbed Michael by the shoulder as he tried to step away from her. "I know you've thought about this, and you aren't worried about the danger you'll be in. You've made your peace with being a fugitive. You think you can live with it, with running. But what about _me_, Michael?"

"Isabel…"

"What about us?" Isabel continued, raising her voice again. The tears came faster now, and she couldn't keep them at bay. "I know that you'll be okay, but what about _us_, Michael? How are we supposed to do this without you? How are we supposed to be okay if you aren't here? How?" With every word, her voice rose in pitch. The sound of her shouts, punctuated by sobs, brought Mr. Evans and Maxwell into the room. They hovered in the doorway, exchanging worried glances, as Isabel continued her pain-filled rant.

"I can't do this… you can't… without you…" Isabel's words were almost incoherent now as the tears continued to stream down her pale face. "What about _me_?" she asked again, this time in a whisper, before turning on her heal and storming from the room.

Michael watched her go for a moment, his expression unreadable, then he turned and walked through the door and onto the Evans' lawn. The door slammed shut behind him, and he drew a deep breath, looking around in frustration and uncertainty. He ran his hands through his hair and closed his eyes, and suddenly a powerful strong sensation filled him.

It was a memory he couldn't quite recall, a dream that evaded his grasp as he tried to reach for it. But he could almost feel Isabel's presence standing next to him, he could almost hear the tears in her voice although he couldn't understand the words… and the twisting in his gut told him that she was upset and furious… and he was scared.

And then the feeling was gone, fading away quickly, and he opened his eyes to find himself standing once again on the Evans' immaculate lawn.

And only one thought, one question, ran through his mind.

"What the hell was that?"

* * *

As he took a sip of the dark coffee, Valenti couldn't help but wonder if there wasn't something symbolic about the fact that the black brew was bitter. It was scalding hot, but he hadn't had the patience to let it cool. On the desk in front of him, a few papers spread out in a fan. They were papers from Michael's file, and he pushed them aside to make room for his mug.

He set the coffee cup down and closed his tired eyes, rubbing his temples in an attempt to forestall the inevitable migraine.

He didn't know how long he had been here. He had left the hospital shortly after the end of his conversation with Ms. Topolski, and had driven back to his office. As he had expected, the place was deserted, and there was no one to interrupt him from his complex and troubled thoughts.

He had know idea what to do.

Every sane, rational part of his mind was screaming for him to take the deal, to listen to what Ms. Topolski had to say, and to keep his mouth shut about it.

But the irrational, emotional part of his heart kept telling him that taking the deal was wrong. He couldn't quite pinpoint exactly why it was wrong, but he knew it was. Somehow, it felt as though working with the FBI would be taking the wrong side and betraying someone else's trust.

He just didn't know who this someone else was.

He leaned back in his chair and thought about everything that had happened. He thought about the shooting, about the rumors that had followed that. He thought about his conversations with Liz Parker and Michael Guerin. He thought about the brief investigating he had done. He thought about Kyle and Tess' worry that he would end up like his father. He thought about Deputy Hannigan and Dr. Drake. He thought about Michael Guerin and the Child Protection Services. He thought about the FBI's presence in Roswell.

Could he do it? Could he continue this investigation? Could he lie to Drake's family about what had happened to the doctor? Could he live with himself if he did this?

And if he chose not to work with Ms. Topolski, would his curiosity let him drop everything?

He had once. He had walked away from his alien-conspiracy-theories and focused on the more reputable aspects of his job. He had given up trying to prove his father correct because he hadn't wanted to condemn Kyle and Tess to what he had gone through as a child. He knew what it was like to listen and watch as a parent got discredited and mocked, he wouldn't do that to his own children.

But now…

A man was dead. How was he supposed to walk away from this?

He reached for the phone and dialed the number Ms. Topolski had given him. After a few rings, she picked up in her cool and brisk voice.

"Sheriff Valenti? I hope you have made a decision?"

Valenti nodded to himself as he replied, "Yes, I have. The deal… I'll take it. I'm in."

* * *

Liz was pacing. At some point during the explanation, both Liz and Maria had taken a seat on one of the benches lining the hallway. But now Liz felt the desire to stand up, and she began to restlessly pace.

She wanted to know a lot of things. She wanted to know why no one had woken her up and told her what was going on. It appeared as though everyone else had been dragged into this entire mess, why was she left out? Had they not thought her help would be useful? Had they forgotten about her? Had they simply not cared?

They were all in this together. How many times had Max said that? Mostly to Tess, but he had even used that defense with Michael. If Ms. Topolski was FBI, if Michael was in the hospital, wasn't she in just as much danger as everyone else? Especially if, as Maria said, Ms. Topolski even had a file on her.

She thought back to that conversation. Maria had said that their guidance counselor had a file, but when Liz had asked her what was in it, she had skirted the issue. It was almost as though there was something there that Maria was trying to hide, but why would she do that? What could Ms. Topolski have possible written about Liz that would make Maria so nervous?

She had wanted to press the issue, but Maria looked too lost, too hurt, for Liz to do that to her. So the brunette pushed away all her suspicions and all her frustration, and focused on the other bit of information that Maria had shared.

Who her father really was.

She knew she needed to say something to Maria. She just wasn't sure what she was supposed to say. Running a hand through her hair, she took a slow breath, then said softly, "Your mother loves you."

Maria turned and looked at Liz, her eyes dark. She gave a bitter chuckle and said, "You're not the first person to say that to me."

"Well, maybe you should believe us," Liz suggested.

"I do," Maria replied with a shrug. She looked back down at the floor, refusing to meet Liz's disbelieving eyes. "I _know_ that my mother loves me. I just…" She shook her head. "I just don't understand it."

"What's not to understand?" Liz asked curiously, taking a seat next to Maria again.

"Everything. I don't know how she did all this. How she… I just… everything's so… strange. I can't quite understand… can't wrap my head around this…" She looked back at Liz. "When Sean first came, I had trouble dealing with it, but I _was_ able to deal with it. I was able to understand and accept that he was here."

"And you can't accept this?" Liz pressed.

"I don't know," Maria replied slowly biting her bottom lip worriedly. "I just…" She closed her eyes for a moment, inhaling deeply and trying to arrange her thoughts into coherent sentences. "My mom says Sean is different."

"Different?" Liz questioned. She wasn't entirely sure what this had to do with anything, but she knew that Maria needed to say it. Somehow, it was important to the blonde, and Liz was more than willing to listen if it would help her friend.

"He doesn't remember things… important things. And… his eyes, she said." Maria shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, people change. So she shouldn't have expected that he would be the same, right?"

"Right," Liz agreed, waving a hand vaguely. "Right."

"And she says he's not the same… she doesn't know how to… to explain it… or how to relate…how to go back to the way things were… before…" Maria sighed and opened her eyes, turning to look at Liz with a serious expression. "When I look at my mom now, she looks different to me. I mean, she's still the same, but she… her eyes… somehow they just seem different." She ran a hand through her hair. "Something's changed. And I don't know if I can go back."

* * *

Next Chapter: Backtrack

Due: Now


	49. Backtrack

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: After a six chapter detour, we finally get back to the consequences of the Homecoming Dance. I know I've said this before, but I thought I should reiterate, despite everything that has happened, it has actually just been a few hours since the dance ended. It's only the next morning.

* * *

Chapter Forty-Eight: Backtrack

"I thought you were leaving Roswell."

"I'm not sure anymore… Can I come in?"

Maria sighed and stepped away from the front door of her house, allowing Michael to enter. He stepped past her into the living room and looked around for a moment, his tired eyes taking in the stacks of newspapers piled up by the door and the cascade of letter sliding off the coffee table. He couldn't remember if he had ever been in Maria's house before, but he was fairly certain that Amy would not have left things lying around like this.

Maria flushed as she followed Michael's gaze. "I haven't really had a chance to clean up…" she said by way of explanation.

Michael didn't respond right away. His eyes were still sweeping over the room as he wrapped his arms around himself and sighed. The early morning light flooded in through the far window, falling across the floor and pushing the shadows up against the wall. He was standing half in and half out of the light, and Maria was suddenly struck by how vulnerable he looked.

Then he turned to look at her, and the moment was gone. His eyes were dark again, and his face set into a hard expression. "Max didn't lend me his car. He called his father instead."

Maria swallowed and nodded, realizing that Michael would have seen that act as a betrayal, no matter that Max was only trying to help. She didn't know if there was anything she could say that would make the situation better. Whatever she tried to say, Michael could easily construe it as her taking Max's side. So she said nothing, waiting for him to continue.

"Mr. Evans thinks he can help me," Michael continued, shaking his head in disbelief. The idea that anyone could help him was ridiculous. This was more than just a schoolyard fight, he had almost _killed_ Hank. He had used his gifts in front of a man he was fairly certain would not hesitate to expose them. This was not something that could be fixed with a few words of explanation.

Maria wondered vaguely if any adult had ever offered to help Michael before.

"Maybe he can," she said. She walked over to the sofa and sat down on it, gesturing for Michael to take a seat as well.

He remained standing.

"Not from this…" Michael turned to stare at Maria. She met his gaze for a moment, then looked away. He wondered what she was thinking, what had happened since he had last seen her. he was fairly certain that she had gone back to the hospital to be with her mother. Had something happened?

"You don't know that," Maria interjected, breaking his train of thought. "Maybe Mr. Evans can help you."

Michael gave a snort of disbelief. "It isn't that simple," he began, but Maria cut him off.

"No, it isn't," she agreed, the volume of her voice raising slightly in anger. "It is a lot more complicated. But we… _God_, Michael, we did _so much_ to fix this. We snuck into the hospital to switch your blood with Alex's. I got up in the middle of the night and drove to the hospital to keep an eye on you and make sure no one caused you any more trouble. I'm guessing that Max, Isabel, and Tess are already working on some plan to make sure that Hank doesn't expose you. Max and Isabel even risked getting their parents involved to help you. And you're going to repay all that by what? _Leaving?_"

Michael frowned, remembering Isabel's earlier words, and the way the tears streamed down her face as she yelled at him. Then he remembered the strange vision that had hit while he was standing in the yard, the half-memory of Isabel from a different time and place.

What did it mean? What did any of it mean?

Liz had had flashes of their past. She had seen… or rather felt… Max and Tess… _together_. Had she seen anything with Michael or Isabel? He didn't know if she had had any other flashes since that one. He wasn't entirely sure if she had even kissed Max since then, although he assumed that she had. Still, he hadn't seen the two of them together except for the Homecoming Dance, so maybe their relationship was cooling.

"Michael?"

He started, turning back to look at Maria. "What?" he asked, his voice sharper than he had intended.

"You should tell Mr. Evans you will take his help. Then you should go back to the hospital and let the doctor's finish making sure you are okay."

"Yeah… Isabel thought so also."

Maria raised an eyebrow. Why was he bringing up Isabel specifically? _Everyone_ thought he should go back.

"You kissed me at the dance," Maria said finally. It probably wasn't the best time to bring it up, but she had to know what it meant.

Homecoming. Michael sighed and rubbed the back his head absently. He remembered Maria's anger and bitterness all throughout dinner. He remembered their argument, the way she had glowered at him before he kissed her, and the stunned expression on her face after he walked away.

"I did," he agreed. There really wasn't much else to say.

"What does it mean?" Maria asked. "Why did you…?"

Michael hesitated, his mind wandering to Max and Liz. A relationship that had appeared out of nowhere, intense and passionate, and then seemed to fade away just as quickly. He remembered Tess' icy fury when Max first started dating Liz, and he recalled Isabel's concern about revealing their secret to more people. He thought of Hank in his drunken rage, and Ms. Topolski's files. The shape-shifter somewhere out there who had killed the homeless man in the alley, and possibly Deputy Hannigan as well. He vaguely recollected Tess' frustrated expression when she realized she would have to mind-warp Valenti, the pain in Isabel's eyes every time she lied to her parents, the hopeless darkening of Max's eyes when yet another unsolvable problem arose. And his thoughts wandered to the orb found in Atherton's house and the file Ms. Topolski had on the conspiracy theorist, the button found in Hannigan's car and the visions of the completely white room he had seen, the strange sense of déjà vu Max often commented he had when he was around Tess, the memory-vision of Isabel he had just seen.

He liked Maria.

He liked Maria _a lot_.

It was the first time he had actually put that thought into words, even if they were silent words that echoed only in the confines of his own mind.

But he couldn't do this. He couldn't bring her into all of this when he had no idea what it was he would be bringing her into. He knew she was already a part of this mess more than she deserved to be, and he knew that she was going to be stuck in it as long as she stayed friends with Liz and Alex. But if he dated her… it would put her in so much more danger. Too much danger. Too much happened around him that he had no control over.

He was not a safe person to be with.

"Nothing," he said at last. "The kiss… it meant nothing."

Maria kept her face completely impassive as she stared at Michael. Whatever she was thinking, it was too well hidden for the taciturn alien to determine her thoughts.

"Okay," she said quietly.

He was still looking at her, and she knew it hadn't meant nothing. She knew by the way his eyes narrowed slightly at her calm acceptance, by the tension that appeared in his jaw and along his temples. She knew there was something else he wanted to say, but he didn't say it. Instead he turned, and walked to the door.

Maria stood up and followed him, watching as he stepped out onto the porch.

Michael turned abruptly and said, "I don't like Isabel. Not as anything more than a friend. I just… we went to Homecoming as friends."

Maria swallowed. This was the point where she was supposed to say that she and Alex had only gone as friends as well. After all, Michael already knew how Alex felt about Isabel, that much was obvious. So it wouldn't come as any surprise to him that she and Alex didn't harbor any romantic feelings for each other, even thought they had been dating at the very beginning of the year when she had first met the aliens.

But somehow, when she opened her mouth to answer, the words died on her lips, and all she could do was murmur, "Okay." She couldn't form any other words, because her thoughts kept drifting back to her mother, to the comment about Sean having changed. It wasn't just Sean, she realized. It was everything. Since her mother's accident, everything had changed, and the attraction she felt for Michael before wasn't the same. She still liked him, but… She sighed silently as she remembered her own bitterness at the previous night's dinner, the way she had taken her frustration and anger out on her friends. She wouldn't have done that before. Everything had changed, and she…

She didn't know if they could go back.

Michael hesitated, wanting to say something else, then appearing to think better of it.

He couldn't put her in any more danger. He cared about her too much to do that.

So he simply nodded and turned, walking down the steps and along the path towards the street.

Maria wanted to call after him, to make him stop and talk about what had really happened at the dance, but she didn't. Instead, she turned and walked back into her house, letting the door swing shut behind her.

* * *

"The hospital just called," Mr. Evans announced as he walked into the kitchen. "Michael went back there, and asked them to call me. I'm heading over now."

Max and Isabel exchanged relieved glances. Isabel's eyes were still red, her skin still splotchy with tears, but she managed a smile. Mr. Evans slipped back out the door, leaving the siblings alone in the kitchen. Max rested his head in his hands and closed his eyes, letting silence fall over the two of them.

Isabel swallowed and stared at Max's pitifully slumped shoulders. Whatever happened next between her father and Michael would determine Michael's fate with regards to his legal status, but the fate of his friendship with Max had already been decided. Max had betrayed Michael, and no matter the good intentions, there was no going back from that.

"You did the only thing you could," Isabel said gently, reaching out and placing a hand on Max's shoulder.

He looked up at her and shrugged. "I don't think it really makes a difference in the end," he commented dryly. It certainly wouldn't to Michael.

Isabel couldn't think of an appropriate response to that comment, so she switched the subject and said instead, "When do you want me to take you and Tess into Hank's head?"

Max thought about this for a moment, weighing his options. Tess had wanted to wait until Hank was more stable so that they had less of a chance of harming him. After all, they would do Michael no good if Hank died while they were trying to fix his mind. On the other hand, he didn't know how long Hank would be unconscious, and they needed to do this before he woke up and started talking.

"Later this afternoon," Max said at last. It was what Tess had suggested, and she had more experience with this sort of thing than he had.

A knock on the door forestalled Isabel's response, and Max stood up wearily, wondering who could possibly be over at the house at this early hour. He walked into the living room, Isabel trailing behind him. Pulling the front door open, he found Liz standing on the steps, staring up at him.

"Can I come in?" Liz asked, and Max stepped aside to let her enter. Liz walked into the room and asked immediately, "How's Michael? Is he… I mean, did he leave Roswell?"

"You know?" Isabel demanded, confused. No one had told Liz what was going on, how could she know all this?

"Maria told me," Liz replied quietly. "I went to the hospital and she was there… she told me everything that had happened." Although there was no bitterness in her words, they carried the unmistakable implications of an accusation. Why hadn't they told her themselves? Were they even going to tell her, or was she going to be out of the loop in this entire mess?

"Michael's still here," Max replied, ignoring Liz's silent admonishments. "He went back to the hospital." There was a silence, as Liz waited for Max to say something else, and Isabel watched the other two teens with growing concern.

Finally, Liz sighed and said, "Well, that's good. Is there anything I can do?"

"I think we have everything covered," Max replied tiredly. Of course, he knew perfectly well they didn't have everything covered, but there really wasn't much that Liz could do at this point. There wasn't much anyone could do until Hank was taken care of and Michael's legal fate was decided.

"Is Michael going to be in trouble?" Liz asked as though reading Max's thoughts.

"My dad went to talk to him," Isabel cut in when Max didn't answer the question. "We are waiting to see if he can resolve anything…"

"Okay." Liz bit her lip and looked down at the floor. The logical part of her knew that Max was already stressed about what had happened to Michael, and this wasn't a good time to bring up her own issues with being out of the loop, but the emotional part of her was still very much hurt by his complete disregard for her wellbeing. Wasn't she still part of the group?

Isabel decided abruptly that this would be a good time to leave the room, and she slipped away unnoticed, wandering up the stairs to her room, and leaving Max and Liz alone.

"Well, I guess I should go…" Liz sighed at last when she realized Max wasn't going to say anything else to her.

"Yeah," Max agreed readily.

Liz frowned at his quick reply. She had hoped he would be a little bit more receptive to the idea of her being there. She had wanted him to say that he needed her help, or at least that he would like her help. Or maybe just to have her stay there with him and keep him company until they got some more answers.

At the dance, they had been so completely wrapped up in each other, and only the conflict between Pam and Tess, and the resulting complications with Isabel had pulled them out of their reverie. And then suddenly she didn't matter any more, and Max couldn't even manage to smile at her.

"I didn't realize you'd want to get rid of me so quickly," Liz said with a slight smile, attempting a joke. "Got another girl hidden away somewhere?" It was an opening for Max to tell her what was wrong, and she hoped he would take it.

He didn't.

"I need to check on Isabel."

"Oh."

Max sighed and shook his head slowly. He knew he was being unreasonably cold to Liz, but he just couldn't deal with her right now. Was he supposed to feel guilty that he hadn't automatically thought to call her? He was too busy dealing with Michael and Hank. She should understand that. She should understand how out of control things were right now.

But, of course, she really didn't have a way of knowing that. Because Max and Tess were the only two in the group who knew about the alien presence Tess had sensed in the hallway of the hospital, or the fact that Amy's doctor was dead. And the four aliens were the only ones who really knew what had happened between Michael and Hank, and that Michael had used his gifts against his foster father. Isabel had repeated the visions of her dream-walk to Max, and Max had told Tess, but no one had bothered to inform Maria or Alex, so Liz also wouldn't know.

It was only the four of them that knew just how much danger they were in, and how quickly everything could fall apart.

But Max was too tired and worried and stressed to try t explain this to Liz. After all, she was the one who had said that she needed an identity separate from him, that she had to stop neglecting her friends. She was the one who said that he couldn't make decisions for her without consulting her, that he needed to give her space. So he was giving her space, and if she didn't like it… tough.

"I guess I'll be seeing you then…" Liz murmured at last.

Max had already turned away from her, and was looking towards the stairs. There wasn't anything else for Liz to say, so she turned and walked out of the house.

* * *

Tess fell back against her bed and questioned dryly into her cell phone, "If I kiledl Pam Troy, do you think a jury would condemn me or declare that my actions were actually justified?"

"I don't understand why she's so set on ruining Trudy's life," Sara spat, her voice echoing through the phone.

Tess sighed and shrugged, even though she knew Sara couldn't see the movement. "She's Pam. This is what she does," Tess replied as though that explained everything. Honestly, though, Tess was wondering the same thing herself. Granted it was in Pam's interests to make sure Kyle and Trudy didn't get back together, but everything that had happened at the dance… that had been a little extreme.

Looking back, Tess couldn't understand why Pam had gone to so much trouble to bring Isabel into her schemes. It would have been so much simpler for her to just insult Trudy, and know that Kyle would agree with her. Why would she bother with Isabel?

Tess shook her head. She was paranoid, she had to be paranoid. There was no possible way that this was anything other than Pam being… well, Pam.

"Tess?" Sara's voice cut into the petite alien's thoughts. "You still with me?"

"Sorry," Tess replied with a slightly forced laugh. "I was just thinking up ways to kill Pam. Any Kyle."

"Yeah, I definitely have Kyle on my list of people to murder. Seriously, he was being so childish last night," Sara agreed readily.

"He has been since he and Trudy broke up," Tess replied. Although she knew that wasn't quite true. He'd been acting like this since he and Liz broke up, since he thought that Liz had cheated on him with Max. And maybe then he did have a reason to be upset because no one likes to 'discover' that their girlfriend is having an affair, but still…

"Yeah, well, let me know when he stops being a jerk," Sara muttered.

Tess smiled to herself, but then frowned at Sara's next question.

"Are you really going to invite Isabel shopping?"

She was paranoid. She _had_ to be paranoid. Her worries were completely unfounded and in every way based on paranoia.

But try as she might, Tess couldn't quite dismiss the little voice in her head that asked pointedly why it was _Isabel_ that Pam had dragged into this, and not some other girl.

Some human girl.

* * *

Ms. Topolski flipped through the report that Agent Willis had handed her. The findings were inconclusive, and it bothered her slightly. Michael Guerin's blood had appeared to be completely normal and one hundred percent human. But… but that just didn't make sense.

Willis watched as Ms. Topolski scanned the report, then said quietly, "We've removed Dr. Drake's body from the hospital. Agent Pierce is currently working on a story to cover our tracks."

Ms. Topolski nodded. "Good," she replied crisply. It was imperative that they leave no trace of what they had done. It would not do for the news to reach the local papers, or she would have too much explaining to do, and they would lose this valuable opportunity.

"Did Sheriff Valenti agree to our terms?" Willis inquired.

Ms. Topolski nodded. "He did," she replied with some satisfaction. Then she switched the subject and said sharply, "This is not Michael Guerin's blood."

"It was labeled…"

"Whatever it was labeled was wrong," Ms. Topolski replied smoothly. "I refuse to believe that he is completely human. Not after what happened to his foster father." That particular incident had changed her opinion of the boy drastically. Before, she had been more inclined to believe that, even if Michael had some superhuman abilities, he might not be a threat. He might simply be an unwanted foster child trying to get through high school. But after seeing what he had done to his foster father, she was more inclined to believe that he was a serious threat.

Hank Guerin was not in good shape.

"Do you think the blood has been switched?"

"I would stake my career on it," Ms. Topolski replied firmly. And there was only one person who would have completely human male blood. "I need a sample of Alex Whitman's blood."

After a few more exchanged sentences, Willis left the office, and Ms. Topolski returned her attention to the file. She rubbed her eyes wearily. She was tired, and it was time for her to return to her apartment and attempt to get some sleep. But she couldn't quite let go of everything that had happened. There was something obvious and important right in front of her, and she just couldn't figure out what it was.

She let her mind wander to a conversation she had had only a few days earlier. She had called one of the students into her office under the pretext of wanting to inquire about how the year was progressing. What had started as a simple conversation had ended as something quite a bit more valuable.

There were girls like Pam Troy in every school. She had run into the type in her own school, and she had not forgotten what they were like. Self-centered and snobby, thriving on other people's problems, enjoying the trouble they caused, and completely disregarding anyone else's feelings.

Through Pam, she had discovered that the rift between Kyle and Trudy was growing. Through Pam, she had realized that Tess would go to great lengths to avoid hurting either her friends or her brother. Through Pam, she had discovered who was going with whom to Homecoming, and what a perfect opportunity that had presented.

It hadn't been too difficult to suggest that Pam cause trouble by somehow forcing Isabel and Tess into close quarters. A few casual words, a passing remark about Tess being an annoyed that Kyle was upsetting Trudy, a comment about how Tess and Isabel seemed to be at odds and wasn't that unusual because why would Tess care what Isabel thought if they had never even been friends? And Pam was more the willing to take the bait and cause a mess.

They were good, this group of teenagers. They covered their tracks well, and so far she had been unable to get any concrete evidence from them. But she had seen the way they worked, and she knew that most of their ability to keep their secrets was based on a strict set of guidelines they had made for themselves about how they interacted in public and in private. That meant keeping their distance at school and avoiding any trouble that would link all of them together. And yet, for all their talents, they were still only teenagers, and Ms. Topolski knew that if she just kept creating trouble for them, sooner or later they would slip up.

* * *

Next Chapter: Issues of Legality

Due: Sun 10/29


	50. Issues of Legality

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: So, I just wanted to make sure that everyone knew that at my previous update last week, I posted two chapters. It occurred to me at some point that people may not realize that both _Where My Loyalties Lie_ and _Backtrack_ were new. This week there is only one chapter, but if you didn't read both chapters from last week, you might want to do that.

* * *

Chapter Forty-Nine: Issues of Legality

"Dad's been at the hospital for a few hours," Isabel remarked worriedly, glancing at the clock on the wall. "What do you think is taking so long?"

Max shrugged. "They have a lot to talk about," he reasoned, attempting to disguise his own worry.

"Have you spoken to Tess?" Isabel asked, shifting her gaze to Max.

"Yes, she's coming over now. We'll do the mind-warp and fix Hank's brain as soon as she gets here."

Isabel nodded. She wanted to ask if Max had spoken to Liz since the brunette had left the house a few hours ago, but didn't know how to bring up the subject. Obviously, Max was still upset about the argument, and this was not a good time to make anyone any more upset than they needed to be.

Still, she wondered if he was going to be able to work out that particular relationship before it crumbled.

* * *

Tess paused at the end of the park, glancing over her shoulder at the bench halfway down the block. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she stared at the girl sitting their. Even from the distance, she could see that something was wrong; Liz was hunched over, resting her head in her hands, pieces of dark brown hair falling between her fingers. 

The blonde alien hesitated for a moment. Part of her wanted to ignore Liz's obvious pain and turn away. She was far enough away at this point that Liz hadn't seen her, didn't even know she was there, so why would she voluntarily go and bring notice to herself? Who care what Liz's problems were anyway?

But the other part of her was arguing against that. As Max had pointed out several times, Liz was in the group, and whatever happened to them would ultimately affect her. So, by the same logic, whatever happened to Liz would ultimately affect them, and Tess really didn't want to be caught unawares by more trouble.

After a brief and bitter debate, she shoved her reluctance away and walked briskly towards Liz.

Liz looked up at the sound of heels echoing on the cement and frowned as Tess appeared in front of her. "What's wrong?" she asked instantly. This was Tess, after all, and the girl would never have approached Liz if something wasn't the matter.

"I was about to ask you the same thing," Tess replied with a raised eyebrow.

Liz gaped. Was Tess actually showing some concern for her?

"Did something happen that would affect the rest of us?" Tess pressed.

Liz sighed and shook her head, berating herself for being stupid enough to think Tess would ever actually care about non-alien related problems.

"I'm fine," Liz replied, her shaking voice betraying the lie.

Tess frowned at Liz, then asked slowly, "Did anyone tell you what happened last night?"

"You mean with Michael?" Liz asked curiously. "Yeah… Maria told me."

Tess folded her arms over her chest as she heard the bitterness in Liz's words. Obviously, the brunette human had hoped to hear from Max. Well, really, Max had a few other things on his mind at the moment, and Liz should have been more understanding of that. It isn't every day that you almost lose your best friend, first to a drunken foster-father and then to the police.

"Max has been busy," Tess said icily. She ran a hand through her hair and bit her lip, before continuing, "We are in a lot of danger right now."

"I know," Liz said wearily.

"No," Tess contradicted her harshly, "you don't know." Liz opened her mouth to argue, but Tess continued quickly, preventing Liz from speaking. "You think you understand what the danger is like, but you don't. You couldn't possibly realize how high the stakes are for us."

"Why do you think that?" Liz demanded. "Why do you always insist that I can't understand what you are going through? How scared you are? How dangerous this is?"

"Because if you truly understood, you wouldn't be sitting here feeling sorry for yourself and angry that Max didn't call you right away," Tess replied firmly. "If you truly understood, you would forgive Max for whatever he's done because you would realize just how much of our lives are going to be determined in the next few hours."

Without another word, Tess turned and walked away.

Liz stared after her for a moment, then shook her head and sighed. In Tess' view of the world, things seemed so much simpler. Whatever was done for the sake of protecting the aliens was the right thing to do, and everything else, including relationships, were only secondary. Unfortunately, nothing was ever that black and white, and while Liz fully understood that Max was under a lot of stress right now, it didn't mean she was willing to automatically forgive him for pushing her away like that.

* * *

The sound of knocking caused Maria to get up and walk over to the front door. She opened it, not particularly caring who was there, but then stopped in surprise and blinked at the visitor. 

"Sean."

"Hi," Sean replied quietly. "Can I come in?"

Maria sighed and stepped aside, allowing her mother's husband to enter. She really didn't want visitors right now, but she was also too tired to protest his presence.

"Can we talk?" Sean continued, gesturing towards the sofa. Maria complied with the request and took a seat at the far end of the sofa, pulling her knees into her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs. Sean sat down across from her and looked around the living room for a moment, before continuing:I wanted to talk about your mother."

"What about her?" Maria asked warily, knowing perfectly well were the conversation was going and not wanting to participate in it.

Sean sighed and looked down at the floor. This was going to be harder than he thought. So far he had managed to stay close to the Royal Four and their human friends without causing any suspicion. Although killing the doctor might have been a bit too bold of a move, it was a necessary one. And soon he might have to add the guidance counselor to the list. Still, despite that, he had managed to stay beneath the radar fairly well.

The next stage in his plan, however, would not be as simple, and he needed to be careful. He needed to know that Maria trusted him, because if he could win her trust, no one else from the group would question him.

"She's upset that you keep avoiding her," Sean said delicately. He watched at a slight flush raced up Maria's face, suffusing her skin. She blinked back tears and looked away, and Sean continued gently, "She loves you very much."

"Did she send you here to tell you that?" Maria asked bitterly. It would be just like her mother to do something like that.

"No," Sean replied. "She didn't. I came on my own."

"You didn't have to do that," Maria said quietly. "I'm not your daughter, you don't owe me anything."

"You always thought I was your father," Sean pointed out quietly. "And when your mother and I first separated, when I thought there was a chance that we could get back together, I always thought of you as my daughter. I know… I know I'm not biologically related to you, and if your mother and I get divorced, I won't even be legally related to you, but… if you want… you can still think of me as your father."

Maria felt a burning sensation grow behind her eyelids. She was not a particularly sentimental person, but the hesitancy and nervousness in Sean's voice, the hopeful look in his eyes, touched her. she swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat and asked, "Why didn't you ever divorce my mother? Why did you… why did you hold on to this hope that she would come back to you even after all these years?"

"I loved her," Sean replied wistfully. Internally, he was quite thankful that he had eavesdropped on conversations between Amy and Maria. Otherwise he probably would have had no idea how to answer that question and still remain true to what Amy had told Maria. "That year we were together… we were so… so in love." He gave Maria a soft smile. "Wait until you fall in love for the first time. Wait until you experience what we experienced. Then you'll understand. That kind of love… you don't let of it. Not if you can help it."

Maria thought of Michael, and nodded slowly.

"Your mother is an amazing woman," Sean continued.

"Did you guys stay in touch after you split up?" Maria asked, curiously.

"Some," Sean replied. "Not that first year, she didn't want… she wanted space, and I understood. But after that… Your mother would send me Christmas cards." He leaned back in the chair and thought about all the Christmas cards he had seen adorning the real Sean's study the night he had killed him. He closed his eyes for a moment, picturing those cards, calling up specific memories of each of the cards that had been signed by Amy DeLuca. "One year she sent me a card with reindeer on it, and another time she sent me these singing snowmen." He reflected to himself that it was really quite a good thing that he was able to remember those cards. One of the powers… no, wait, the Royal Four always referred to them as _gifts_… of being a shape-shifter was a remarkable memory.

"She sent you cards?" Maria asked, surprised and enthralled. Here was a side of her mother she had never known anything about.

Sean nodded. "Yes. We sent e-mails to each other sometimes as well. And letters. We… I guess we were like pen pals." His face hardened slightly, and he continued, "But then, this past year, I haven't heard from her as much."

"She started dating the Sheriff," Maria murmured, and Sean nodded in agreement.

"I guess she finally decided to move on," Sean replied.

"Why? If she still loved you and you still loved her…?"

Sean paused, appearing to contemplate the question. At last, he gave a slight shrug. "Sixteen years is a long time, Maria," he replied with a smile. "We had both changed, and maybe… maybe it was time to move on. Maybe I don't love the person your mother is now, maybe I love the person she was sixteen years ago. Maybe the same is true for her. I don't know why she decided to move on, I just… I think it's just because we've changed."

"You stayed in touch for all those years only to lose her in the end…" Maria whispered thoughtfully, more to herself than to Sean.

"I think I'd already lost her. I think, after your… conception… we were already over then," Sean replied. "It was just hard to let go."

Again, Maria thought of Michael. "How do you know when it is time to let go?" she asked curiously.

"You don't," Sean replied honestly. "At least… at least you don't always know. Sometimes you can't even recognize what the end looks like because you never saw it coming." Sean gave her an unnaturally shrewd look. "Are you thinking about Michael?" he asked with a sly smile.

Maria started. "How do you know about me and Michael?" she demanded.

Sean chuckled lightly. "Maria, anyone who sees the two of you interact knows about you and Michael."

Maria wanted to argue that, but decided against it. Instead, she asked, "Do you think Michael and I… do you think we'd be… good together?"

"I don't know," Sean replied honestly. "You never really can tell. Sometimes you just have to jump in. If you think the risk is worth it, that is."

"Was it with Mom?" Maria questioned. "Was everything you went through these past sixteen years worth it?"

"Yes," Sean replied without hesitation. "Yes, it was."

"But, if I hadn't… I mean, if Mom wasn't… raped… then you two might still be together. And you would have children of your own, and a life of your own, and you would be… happy."

Sean stared at Maria for a long time, then reached out and placed a hand on her knee. "Yes," he said solemnly. "If your mother hadn't been raped, we would still be together. And we would have children of our own."

Maria blinked away the tears, lifting one hand to her eyes to catch the few drops of saltwater that escaped.

"But your mother loves you. She loves you more than anything else in the world. And I know that if she had to chose between a perfect life with me, and this difficult and painful life with you, she would chose you in a heartbeat. I _know_ she would," Sean continued, his voice filled with emotion.

"I wish I believed that," Maria whispered.

Sean smiled. "I know. And I know that nothing I say is going to make it any easier for you to accept." He looked away for a moment, letting his hand drop from her knee. "There are so many things that the two of us screwed up. So many things I would like to do over if I had the chance. But you… you aren't one of those screw-ups. Not to me, and not to your Mom."

"You talk about it like I am your daughter," Maria commented.

"You don't have to be if you don't want to, but… if you want a father… or a father-figure… of just an old man to be friends with… I'd be honored to have you as my daughter," Sean replied. Maria bit her lip and looked down at her knees, and Sean, sensing that she would want to be alone now, stood quickly and said, "I guess I've probably overstayed my welcome. I just wanted to tell you that your mother is worried about you. She loves you and she doesn't want you to feel like you have to avoid her."

"I can't help it," Maria countered. "So much has happened, I can't go back to the way things were before. I can't just pretend like I don't know about my real father."

"No, you can't," Sean agreed. "But you don't have to go back to the way things were. You don't have to go back at all. Your mother will always be your mother, and she will always be a part of your life, no matter how things change. So if you can't go back… maybe you should just focus on going forward."

And then he turned and let himself out of the house.

* * *

"So, let's go through this one more time," Mr. Evans said tiredly, rubbing the back of his head absently as he stared at the notes he had jotted down on his legal pad. "You came home from the dance, and Hank was in such a foul mood that you were afraid for your life." 

Michael nodded slowly, staring at Mr. Evans as the lawyer recapped their previous conversation. "Yes, that's right," he agreed.

Mr. Evans continued, "He was drunk, and screaming, and he said something about how the Social Services had threatened to take you away from him. He thought you had gone to talk to them."

Michael gave a snort of disgust and replied, "Yeah, that's what he said. Don't know why he thought that, though."

Mr. Evans winced slightly. Of course, he knew exactly why Hank had though that Michael had spoken to Child Protection Services. Mr. Collins had obviously gone to speak to Hank after bringing his complaints to the Sheriff's office. It was an incredibly stupid move on his part, hadn't he realized that it could put Michael in danger? Or perhaps he had just been too focused on trying to remove Michael from the potentially dangerous situation that he was in, that he didn't realize a confrontation with Hank might only make matters worse.

Mr. Evans sighed and pushed away those thoughts. The situation had not been handled well in the past, but here was a chance to remedy that. He needed to focus on the future, on what he could do to best help Michael now.

"So… Mr. Guerin was shouting at you, threatening you… and Max and Isabel?" Mr. Evans pressed, swallowing nervously. His throat was suddenly very dry, and he looked up quickly to meet Michael's eyes.

"Yes," Michael replied. He wasn't looking at Mr. Evans, but instead looking down at the bed he was lying on. An few tubes snaked along the side of the bed, one of them connecting to his finger to measure his heartbeat, the other ending with an IV needle stuck into the crook of his elbow. When he had finally returned to the hospital, the nurses had been more than a little displeased about his sudden disappearance. They had wanted to run more tests, but he had firmly put his foot down on that one, knowing that it would only put him in more danger. They had finally agreed and sent him back to his room after he had promised not to leave again. He wondered idly if they had the room on surveillance now. Was he considered a flight risk?

"Did he say why he wanted to… to hurt Max and Isabel?" Mr. Evans asked. It was hard to say the words, to realize that his children could have been in danger from this man. Part of him knew that Michael had crossed a line when he had injured Hank so badly, but the other part… the other part was sorry that Michael hadn't just flat out killed Hank. No one threatened Mr. Evans children and got away with it.

On the other hand, even as he thought those thoughts, he realized the unfairness of the situation to Michael. Max and Isabel had two parents who would do anything to keep them safe, and Michael had nothing. Here he was, forced to defend himself and his friends, and then being forced to worry about punishment for his actions.

"He knew we were friends," Michael replied. He sighed and leaned back in the bed, finally lifting his eyes towards Mr. Evans. "I guess he thought maybe they had spoken to Child Protection Services as well. I don't know his reasoning. I just… I just knew I didn't want him to hurt them. I knew I needed to stop him from hurting them."

"So he tried to hit you, and you pushed him away from you and into the wall?" Mr. Evans prompted.

Michael nodded. "Yes. He was drunk, so he didn't… he didn't stop. He kept coming at me, but I… I guess I just got… carried away."

"You threw him through a plaster wall," Mr. Evans replied dryly. "Most judges will consider that a little more than carried away."

"He kept saying he'd hurt Max and Isabel," Michael replied with a shrug. "They're the only friends I've got, the only ones I've ever had. They're… like family. I couldn't let them hurt him." He said it simply, as though it was the obvious conclusion. His friends were in danger and he had to protect them, what else would he have done?

"That's the angle we are going to take with the judge," Mr. Evans said at last. "Hank's a lot worse off than you are, and that isn't going to look good, no matter what. Not to mention your record. But if we can argue that you were acting in defense of yourself and your friends, and if we can show that Hank has always had a violent tendency, and his threats are things to take serious, we have a shot at convincing a judge to…"

"To what?" Michael asked bitterly. "To send me to another foster home outside of Roswell? To separate me from everyone?" He shook his head and growled, "I shouldn't have come back."

"You did the right thing," Mr. Evans said slowly.

Michael shrugged noncommittally. "I guess," he replied, his tone clearly betraying his doubt.

"The judge is going to want to know why you left the hospital, and why you came back," Mr. Evans said, changing the subject.

"I left because I wanted to leave town," Michael said.

"And when you left, you ran into Maria?" Mr. Evans replied, glancing down at his notes again. "She was here visiting her mother, and you ran into her in the parking lot."

"Yes."

"And then you talked for a few minutes, before leaving. She tried to stop you, but you didn't listen to her. You went to our house, and…" Mr. Evans stopped, suddenly unsure. He didn't want to bring up what his son had done, but he could tell by the darkening of Michael's eyes that Max's role in all of this was not going to be forgotten any time soon.

"And I talked to you," Michael cut in before the silence grew too awkward. "Isabel convinced me to stay, so I went back to the hospital."

"And you weren't anywhere else at all between the time you left our house and when you returned to the hospital?" Mr. Evans asked. According to the nurses, there was a significant time gap between when Michael had left a sobbing Isabel and when he had shown up at the hospital. Where had he been for that time?

Michael thought about Maria for a moment, then shook his head. "Not really. I wandered around for a bit, but I didn't go anywhere specific."

Mr. Evans frowned slightly. He had spent several years working as a lawyer, he had a good sense for when his client was lying to him. And he was almost positive that Michael was still holding something back. But he didn't know how to press the issue without losing Michael's trust, and he couldn't afford to do that right now.

"So… what's going to happen to me?" Michael asked.

Mr. Evans sighed. "Have you ever considered applying for emancipation?"

* * *

Agent Pierce packed up the last of the doctor's belongings and looked around the bedroom. It was a large bedroom, with a bed, two dressers, a vanity, a small bedside table, and an overstuffed armchair. A small, blue porcelain bed lamp rested on the bedside table. The wall opposite the bed held a picture of the doctor and his wife, and two pictures of small, cheerfully smiling girls, sat on either side of the vanity. 

Dr. Drake's family.

It was eight in the morning, and Dr. Drake's wife had already left. A few minutes of research into her past and two phone calls to sources at the FBI had determined that she was housewife, and it was a well known habit of hers to go to the gym every morning. Pierce had waited outside her house until she drove away, and then he had easily slipped inside, unnoticed in the early morning.

The two daughters were still asleep. One was eleven, the other thirteen, and apparently their mother had no qualms about leaving them alone in the morning.

Careful not to wake them, Pierce had started systematically packing everything that belonged to Drake, throwing it into suitcases. He took every last article of clothing down to the doctor's underwear and socks, until there was nothing left in the bedroom.

Then he hauled the two suitcases out to his car, threw them into the trunk, and drove away.

Once he had turned the corner at the end of the block, he picked up his phone and dialed a number.

It would only take him a few moments on the internet to have money transferred from the Drake's joint bank account to another, secure location. He would leave a paper trail of motel receipts in Drake's name to make it look as though the doctor had skipped town, and had no intention of coming back. Mrs. Drake would see all this, and would believe that her husband had left her.

It was, of course, illegal, but that didn't bother Pierce. As far as he was concerned, anything done for the sake of protecting the country against these extraterrestrials was perfectly ethical, no matter what laws were broken.

National safety was the number one priority.

* * *

Tess took a seat on Max's bed and watched as Isabel flipped through a series of pictures in her photo album. She was looking for a picture of Hank that she could use to dream-walk. Max leaned over her shoulder, staring at all the pictures, a frustrated expression on his face, and Tess knew he was wondering what would happen between him and Michael in the future. 

"Here…" Isabel pointed to a picture which showed Michael and Isabel sitting around the table at Hank's trailer. Hank was standing in the background, glaring at the two teenagers. The picture had been taken by Max a few years ago, when they were all in eighth grade.

"So, you'll take Tess and I in, and I'll see if I can repair any damage to Hank's brain, and then keep him alive while Tess mind-warps him?" Max repeated the plan, glancing from the picture to Isabel and then to Tess.

"What exactly am I going to mind-warp him into thinking?" Tess asked. "We don't know what story Michael told your father."

"No, but Michael is smart enough to keep the story as close to the truth as possible," Max pointed out. "Just make sure that Hank doesn't remember that any of us have our extraterrestrial gifts, and erase the part of his memory where Michael attacks him," he instructed.

Tess nodded slowly. What they were attempting was something new, something none of them had ever done before. She wasn't sure if it would work, none of them were. All they could do was pray, because if it didn't work, nothing Mr. Evans did to help Michael would keep them out of danger.

* * *

Next Chapter: Independence Day 

Due: Sun 11/5


	51. Independence Day

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: So, another reminder, the only two of the group that know that Drake is dead are Max and Tess. They haven't gotten around to telling anyone else yet. So the two of them, Valenti, and the FBI are the only ones who know. Italics are dreams.

* * *

Chapter Fifty: Independence Day

The first thing Tess thought when she looked around the inside of Hank's head was that it was a mess. He was dreaming, of course, she knew that. He had to be dreaming, or else Isabel's gifts wouldn't have worked. But his dreams weren't coherent, they didn't follow any set path. Images swam in and out of focuses, colors and swirls of light flashed abruptly into strange shapes, and nothing followed any set timeline. The air was filled with a strange buzzing, throbbing and vibrating. The cacophonous sound echoed around them, alternating between high-pitched screeches and muffled humming.

"This is…" Isabel shook her head slowly. "This isn't normal. Hank's mind is… hurt." As she said the words, she suddenly realized their significance and murmured in a apprehensive voice, "Michael really did a number on him."

Max thought about that for a moment, but didn't focus on it. They had a job to do, and they couldn't get distracted by this damage. "Tess," he said, glancing over at her, "take Isabel's hand." He reached out for his sister and linked hands with her as well, then continued, "Alright, if we focus on channeling out powers we should be able to fix this."

Tess raised an eyebrow at him and nodded. They were taking a risk on this one, and Tess wasn't really sure how they were supposed to do it. If she combined her mind control powers with Max's healing powers, they might be able to fix some of the damage, but…

"I know we've never done anything like this," Max whispered, noting the expression on Tess' face, "but we don't have a choice. We need to focus, alright? Michael's counting on us."

Tess shrugged and she clasped hands with Isabel. With her other hand, she reached out towards Max, forming a ring. The three of them stood, hands linked, eyes closed, and focused on their gifts. Slowly and with painstaking care, they called their respective gifts to the surface, forcing the rush of sudden power that flooded their veins to obey their commands.

They had to do this correctly. For everyone's sake, they had to fix this.

* * *

Michael stared at the paperwork that Mr. Evans had left with him. The lawyer had returned to his office to do some preliminary research about emancipation before scheduling a meeting with the judge. It was still the weekend, and the court wouldn't be open for petition until Monday, so that gave Michael time to prepare his case and get his story straight and in agreement with whatever memory Tess left in Hank's head.

Michael sighed and pushed the papers away. He had promised Mr. Evans that he would remain at the hospital until he was discharged, and fortunately the nurses had not felt the need to run anymore blood tests so he appeared to be out of danger. But he still felt antsy, trapped in this white-washed room.

Deciding a quick walk in the hallway couldn't hurt, Michael lifted himself carefully from them bed and detached the pulse oximeter from his finger. He then walked over to the door and pushed it open, stepping out into the hallway.

Two nurses were standing to his left, talking in hushed whispers. They hadn't noticed him, and Michael was about to step past them when something in their conversation caught his attention. He paused, listening intently as they spoke.

"…and she actually showed up here?" the first nurse asked incredulously.

"In hysterics!" the second nurse replied with indecent laughter in her voice. "Apparently she couldn't believe he would just leave her, and she was convinced there was some other explanation. Talked to the receptionist and some of the doctors, but no one's seen Drake since last night. And since his suitcases and belonging had all been removed from the house…"

"I can't believe he would just walk out on her. And his children. He's got two daughters, doesn't he?"

"I think so," the second nurse agreed, shaking her head and clucking her tongue disapprovingly. "I don't know the whole story, I only heard what she said to one of the doctors, and obviously I didn't want her to think I was eavesdropping so I couldn't stand there forever, but…"

"I always thought he was so responsible. This will be a major blow to the hospital if he's really left town," the first nurse sighed.

"Not to mention quite the scandal for his wife," the other woman replied sympathetically. "I mean, really… Roswell hardly ever has gossip and this will last for at least a few weeks. Poor woman…"

"And the children. Imagine having to deal with all this, and at such a young age."

Michael frowned, turned, and slipped back into his room. He walked back over to the bed and sat down on it, thinking.

So Dr. Drake had just left? That seemed unlikely, especially if he had just disappeared at the same time that Michael had coincidently shown up at the hospital.

And Michael had stopped believing in coincidences a long time ago.

* * *

"Liz? What are you…?" Alex spun around in his desk chair and stared around his room in confusion. Liz was standing in the doorway to his room, her arms crossed over her chest, her long hair falling over dark eyes. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," Liz replied, taking a few steps into the room. "I… your father let me in." She glanced at the computer screen behind him, and realized that he was working on their English homework. "Is this a bad time?" she asked hesitantly.

"No, it's fine," Alex assured her. He saved the document he had been working on and closed it, then turned back to face her again. "What's going on?"

"It's about Max," Liz said slowly. "I just… I needed to talk to you." Her voice was shaking with pent up emotion and confusion, and Alex instantly gestured for her to take a seat on the bed.

"You need to talk to me about Max?" he asked, slightly surprised, as Liz pulled her knees into her chest and stared blankly at the wall next to Alex's head.

"Yeah, about me and Max," Liz clarified. "About our relationship."

"Um… isn't that more something that you talked to Maria about?" Alex ventured.

At the mention of Maria's name, Liz's face darkened. "I can't," she said firmly. "I can't bother her with this. She has… she has other things to worry about."

Alex accepted this for a moment, then gave Liz a scrutinizing stare. He leaned back in his seat, regarding her in total silence. Then he asked, "Liz, what do you know about Maria that I don't?"

Liz flushed and looked away. "I can't tell you, Alex. I'm sorry, I just…"

"Is she okay?" Alex demanded, worry flooding through him.

Liz contemplated the question for a moment, wondering how to best answer it. She knew that Maria wouldn't want anyone else to know what was going on, at least not yet. And Liz didn't want to break that trust. So she couldn't give Alex the full truth, or even part of the truth.

"Liz?" Alex prompted.

"She's… emotionally, she's dealing with a lot," Liz said at last. "But I can't… Alex, I can't tell you anymore than that. And if Maria doesn't want to talk to you about it, you can't push her on this. It's just… it's a lot. Okay?"

Again, Alex was silent, studying the determined expression on Liz's face. Finally he nodded. "Alright," he agreed. "So… what's going on with you and Max?"

Liz sighed. "He didn't tell me about Michael," Liz explained. "He didn't… he didn't say anything at all, and I found out from Maria. I don't know if he was even planning on telling me."

Alex frowned. He had naturally assumed that Liz would have been one of the first people that Max had called after hey had successfully switched blood samples. It came as a surprise to him that Liz wouldn't be informed until much later, but he supposed that Max had a lot of his mind.

"Liz, Michael's in a lot of trouble. They all are. Max is just… he's just preoccupied with other things," Alex replied, picking his words carefully.

"I know," Liz replied, rushing to interrupt Alex's defense of her boyfriend. "I know, and I'm not saying he should have dropped everything and run over to my house to tell me. Obviously taking care of the situation with Michael and Hank was more important. I just…" Again, she hesitated, wondering how to best explain what was worrying her. "I went over to see him, to make sure everything was alright and he… he didn't even want to see me. He didn't… Alex, it was like we weren't dating anymore. It was like we weren't even friends, and he didn't…" She shook her head. "It was almost like he didn't even care." She gave a slight laugh and continued, "I know I'm sounding like a petulant toddler."

"No, you're not," Alex contradicted her. He ran a hand through his hair absently, then said, "At the dance, you two were so wrapped up in each other, and now he barely remembers that you two are dating. You don't understand why everything changed so quickly, and you're worried that it will always be like this. Everything will be going great and then something alien will happen, and you'll be forgotten again."

Liz nodded, licking her dry lips. "Yeah, I guess. I mean, I feel like part of this worry is stupid because he healed me. I mean, he brought me back to life. Obviously he cares. But… when Michael went to Marathon with Maria, he _ordered_ me to stay behind. Like I didn't matter to him anymore because one his alien family members was in danger."

"Max loves you," Alex pointed out. "He healed you, he told you his secret, he kept you informed of most of the things going on in the group… the orb from Atherton's house, the button Michael found in Hannigan's car, the history about the Hardings and silver handprints…" He shrugged. "He might not be completely human, Liz, but he's not God either. He's got so much to deal with. Every now and then he's going to screw something up. You're the one thing in his life that if he screws up, he still has a chance to fix it. To apologize and try to make amends. Everything else, if he screws up, he is going to end up in FBI custody being dissected or tortured or killed. And if it's not him, then it's Isabel, Michael, or Tess. He's under a lot of pressure, and maybe he's screwing up with you because he can and the world won't end."

Liz raised an eyebrow. "When did you become an expert on the psychoanalysis of Max?"

Alex just laughed. "Ms. Topolski told me I should be a psychologist. You remember those meetings we had with her when she fist came?"

"Yeah,' Liz replied with a frown. "I wonder how much of that was her trying to get information about Max and the others."

"Seems like we have enemies coming in from all sides," Alex agreed. He gave Liz a smile and said, "Look, it sucks to be the person that Max gets to screw up with. And you do need to talk to him about this. But he is dealing with more than either of us can really understand, and maybe… maybe you should cut him some slack."

Liz considered his advice, then said, "I'll go talk to him. Maybe… if he sees that what he is doing in wrong… then I'll be okay with it. I'll forgive him, I'll cut him some slack. I just… I just need to make sure he understands why this is upsetting me. I need to make sure that…"

"You just need to know where you two stand?" Alex supplied.

Liz nodded. "Yes. I just need to know where we stand."

* * *

_They were standing on the cliffs. Miles below them, the sand stretched out, shimmering golden in the sunset. She was beautiful, her long blonde hair falling loose over her shoulders in a cascade of gentle waves. She was wearing a long navy blue dress that clung to her body in all the right places. The hem skimmed the ground as she turned and caught sight of him where he stood, watching her from the shadows of a nearby rocky outcropping_

_She took a step towards him and he reached out a hand towards her, unable to control his own movements. She smiled, joy filling her tawny eyes, and lifted the cloth of her dress, hurrying towards him in excitement. A moment later he caught her in a tight embrace._

_She laughed suddenly, the noise breaking the silence that had settled around them, and he leaned in towards her. For a moment, his lips grazed hers…_

Michael woke with a start and stared around the room. It took him a moment to realize where he was. He hadn't even remembered drifting to sleep, but he clearly had. He rubbed his weary eyes and glanced down at the legal papers that had fallen from the hospital bed and littered the tile floor.

The dream had been so real, so vivid, and yet, at the same time, so indescribably wrong.

How could he possibly be having dreams about Isabel? She was… well, for lack of a better way of explaining it, she was _Isabel_. And he was Michael. And his dreams were just… _wrong_.

And yet so incredibly… good.

* * *

The buzzing faded away and the images restored themselves to a normal dream. Max had fallen to his knees, his skin tinged with gray. He was tired, exhausted, and the strength needed to fix Hank's brain was quickly draining away his energy.

Isabel was still standing, her fingers wrapped tightly around both Max and Tess' hands. Her hair clung to her face with sweat and she strained to keep the dream-walk going, to focus Max's powers through her and into Hank's mind. Her entire body was shaking with uncontrollable tremors, but around her the chaos of Hank's mind began to fade into order.

Tess had her eyes scrunched tightly closed. Her hands were clammy, her breathing slightly labored. She was sifting through the dreams in Hank's mind, searching for memories of Michael that she could use to direct her gifts. It was difficult, every time she thought she found the right memory, it slipped away from her, dissolving into a sea of thoughts, emotions, and frozen moments captured in memory.

But the combination of their three gifts was working, they could tell that.

_Hank was standing in the front door of his trailer, staring through a drunken haze at Ms. Topolski. The guidance counselor appeared to be attempting to ascertain Michael's whereabouts._

"_Do you know where he might be?" she asked._

"_Sure…" Hank paused for a moment, thinking, then said, "He's been hanging with them Evans kids forever. And I seen that blonde girl around when they were littler."_

_Ms. Topolski smiled. "You mean Tess Harding?" she asked sweetly. _

"_Yeah, them Sheriff's daughter," Hank agreed. "Oh… and I seen him once with that brunette from the diner… Parker girl, you know?"_

"_Elizabeth Parker." Ms. Topolski supplied with a nod. "Tell me, Mr Guerin, is there anything unusual about your foster son?" _

"_Lazy, that's what he is," Hank stated. "Sometimes he does funny things, though. All secretive and stuff. And always running around with them Evans. " He paused, then growled, "Lazy brat." _

Tess shook her head, that wasn't a helpful memory. It showed that Ms. Topolski was asking questions, but they already knew that much. No, she needed something else, some memory where Hank was directly interacting with Michael.

_Hank Guerin opened the door to his trailer and stared in confusion at the man in front of him. He took in the dark suit and the briefcase, and said at last, "Not interested in buyin' nuthin'."_

"_I'm not selling," the man replied briskly. "My name is Mr. Collins and I am from Child Protection Services. I am here about Michael, Mr. Guerin."_

"_Good for nuthin' boy gettin' himself in trouble, is he?" Hank asked, shaking his head in disgust._

_A brief look of contempt washed over Mr. Collins' features before he said, "No, Mr. Guerin, it is not Michael who is in trouble this time." He extended a manila folder to the other man and explained, "We believe that it may be in his best interests to be removed to a different foster home?"_

"_He been complaining?" Hank demanded, instantly enraged. "I put a house over 'is head and clothes on 'is back and he been complaining 'bout me?" _

"_Actually, no, he hasn't," Mr. Collins replied. "Although perhaps he should have. No, we have decided to remove him on our own accord. There will be a trial…"_

"_Trial? I ain't broken no laws," Hank defended himself quickly. "Ain't done nuthin' wrong."_

"_In the case of possible neglect or abuse of a foster child, it is necessary that the foster parent and child are brought to court before the proceedings can be fully dealt with. The judge will inquire into the situation and…"_

"_I ain't been abusive or neglectful!"_

Again, Tess disregarded the memory. Their plan had been to tamper with Hank's emotions in an attempt to make him more compliant to the idea of Michael leaving. Once she put the right emotions in place she could change his memory of the argument from the night before, wiping out any indication of Michael's gifts. But to do that, she needed a memory, any memory, that had Michael is in as well.

Max's strength was giving out, and Isabel was now barely able to stand. If they didn't find something soon…

"_I protected you, you unnatural freak!"_

_Michael froze._

"_You think I didn't notice, boy?" Hank sneered, gloating triumphantly. "All them crazy things you can do? But when that guidance lady came, I didn't tell her nothin' at all! And she asked if you was different!"_

"_Don't…!"_

"_Don't what? Don't tell?" Hank sneered, his words slightly slurred as he leaned against the wall, and even in his inebriated state, he still towered over Michael. "What do you think would happen if I told them, huh? Maybe then they'll take you away. You and those two Evans brats you is always hangin' with!"_

_Michael stared at Hank, pure hatred flickering in his eyes, and he lifted both his hands. Raw power flowed from Michael's outstretched hands and smashed into Hank, lifting him from the ground and propelling him through the air. For a moment, Michael just stood there, staring in horror at what he had done, then he heard the sound of shouting outside, the wail of sirens, and he collapsed to his knees._

"Stop!" Tess ordered, sending both a verbal and a mental message to Max and Isabel. This was it, this was the memory. The scene froze in front of her and she shoved all her power and all her energy into changing it, slowly and surely, erasing any evidence of what Michael could do and altering Hank's memories.

Isabel was on her knees. Max had slumped over slightly. They couldn't keep this up much longer.

"Hold on…" Tess murmured as she channeled her gifts towards the task at hand. "Just hold on."

* * *

Mr. Evans leaned back in his seat and eyed Judge Hawthorne. He was an honest man, a hard worker, and a fair judge. He was also the judge who would be at the courthouse tomorrow, and the one who would decide Michael's fate.

"Mr. Evans, this report from Sheriff Valenti," Hawthorne gestured to a stack of papers on his desk, "doesn't look good. Michael Guerin almost killed a man."

"We don't know that," Mr. Evans replied. "We don't have any idea what happened."

"The eyewitness account states that Michael started the fight," Hawthorne argued.

Mr. Evans was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke, his chose his words carefully. "Mrs. Cunningham's account also states that Michael was drunk. Yet his blood tests don't show even the slightest amount of alcohol in his blood. Hank, on the other hand…" He didn't say anything, simply shrugged.

He didn't have to finish the sentence, they both knew that Hank had had dangerously high levels of alcohol in his blood when he was taken to the hospital.

Hawthorne nodded thoughtfully. "Do you think that Michael is capable of taking care of himself? He tried to flee the hospital this morning, that doesn't bode well for the future."

"But he came back," Mr. Evans replied. "Yes, he tried to flee, but he came back. He put a lot on the line to come here, and in all honestly, Your Honor, Michael has little reason to trust us. According to both my children and Michael himself, this is not the first time that Hank's hit him. And all the people who were supposed to look after him, Child Protection Services, his teachers, the Sheriff… we've all failed."

"Answer me honestly, Mr. Evans, is any of your desire to help Michael based on the fact that he is friends with your children?" Hawthorne asked, throwing Mr. Evans a piercing look.

Mr. Evans sighed. "I don't know," he replied. "Since Michael is close to my children, I've had more of a chance to get to know him than any other adult in this town. And I've interacted with Hank on a few occasions. Granted, I never thought Hank was actually physically abusive, but… but I knew he wasn't a good father."

"A lot of people aren't good fathers," Hawthorne pointed out. "But as long as they aren't _bad_ fathers, we can't take their children from them."

"But Hank isn't even Michael's father," Mr. Evans protested.

"He's the only family Michael has," Hawthorne countered.

"Then maybe Michael is better off without family," Mr. Evans shrugged. "Hank is abusive, we can see that now. And whatever Michael did to him, yes it was uncalled for and yes it was crossing a line but this is a sixteen-year-old who has been trapped in an abusive home for ten years."

"That doesn't excuse almost killing a man," Hawthorne argued.

"And the fact that Michael almost killed a man doesn't excuse the fact that we let him slip through the cracks for a decade!" Mr. Evans shot back.

"I understand your point of view, Mr. Evans, but I can't help but think you are taking this more personally than a lawyer should," Hawthorne said with some concern.

"Michael, Isabel, and Max were all found wandering around in the desert. We found Max and Isabel, but Michael wasn't found until later. What if the situation had been reversed? What if we had found Michael and it had been Max and Isabel who had ended up with Hank?" Mr. Evans shivered as he thought about that. Logic told him that, had the situation been reversed, he wouldn't have felt the same fatherly protection for Max and Isabel that he did now because they wouldn't have been his children. But emotionally, the thought of them ending up with someone like Hank… "I can't not do anything to help Michael, because it could have been my children in that position. It could have been my children with an abusive father."

Hawthorne nodded. "We're going to need to talk to Hank when he wakes up."

"I think we should do this as soon as possible. Michael won't wait forever, and I don't want him to feel as though he needs to run again."

"But what happened to Hank…"

"Can be dealt with later, if it needs to be," Mr. Evans replied. "Look, if we can get Michael out of his situation, then, when Hank wakes up, we can deal with that legal issue. But right now, Michael should be our top priority."

Judge Hawthorne gave Mr. Evans a scrutinizing look. "Let me think it over," he said, waving his hand towards the door in dismissal. "I'll see you and Michael in the courtroom Monday morning and I'll let you know my decision then."

* * *

Tess felt as though her body was breaking into a thousand different pieces. Isabel's hand fell from her grasp as the other alien girl finally lost the last of her energy. The force that was keeping Tess grounded inside Hank's brain drifted away, and Tess found herself being shoved roughly out of the dream.

Tess opened her eyes and rolled over to her side, gasping for breath. Next to her, Isabel jerked awake, opening her eyes and sitting up. Max was the last to get up, and his face was still pale and covered with sweat.

"Tess?" Max asked questioningly.

Tess swallowed and nodded. "I got rid of all the memories relating to Michael and his gifts." She ran a hand through her hair, relief spreading through her body. "And you healed Hank's mind? Protected it from the side-effects of my gift?"

Max nodded. "I did," he replied.

"So… it's done?" Isabel asked. "We did it? We're okay?"

"Yeah," Max whispered, the feelings of panic and dread falling away from him as he realized what they had just accomplished. "Yes, we did it."

* * *

Monday morning dawned a brilliant sapphire blue. The cloudless sky shimmered in the heat, and the air was cooled with a slight breeze.

Michael and Mr. Evans stood side-by-side in Judge Hawthorne's inner chambers, watching and waiting as the judge considered his final choice. Max and Isabel had wanted to be there as well, but Mr. Evans had insisted they go to school. Michael would inform them of the final decision once it was given, but they didn't have to be there to hear it.

"And does the minor, Michael Guerin, pledge to take charge of his life as an adult from here forward?" Hawthorne asked.

"I do, your Honor," Michael replied with a firm nod. His stomach was still bandaged and the bruises on his skin hadn't yet faded, but he spoke with such assurance that Hawthorne couldn't help be be impressed. This was obviously a teenager who would be able to take care of himself.

"And do you understand that you will be solely responsible for your financial, education, and medical decisions as they may arise?" Hawthorne continued,

"I do, sir," Michael consented.

Hawthorne sighed, and leaned back in his chair. "Do you understand, Michael, that even if I grant you emancipation now it does not change the fact that when your foster father wakes there will be another legal matter to deal with?" he asked, dropping the formal tone and scrutinizing Michael.

Michael swallowed and nodded. The little boy inside of him who had spent too man nights wondering if there was something, anything, he could have done to make Hank care about him the way that Mr. and Mrs. Evans cared about Max and Isabel didn't want to deal with Hank anymore. He wanted to put that in the past and move on, but that wasn't possible.

"I do," Michael said at last. If it was the only way he would finally be free of his foster father, then he was willing to do that.

Hawthorne nodded. "Even if it turns out that you were not in any way at fault for the domestic disturbance this weekend, there will be an investigation into Hank Guerin's actions over the past years… and you will need to testify before me, or another judge, as to what he was like."

Michael bit his lower lip and thought about it for a moment. Then he said, "I'm willing to do whatever is necessary, your Honor. I just… I just want to be able to control my own life and make my own decisions. I want to… to be free of Hank."

"Well, might I add, young man, that you are fortunate in having these folks here today who have an interest in your future and have shown a confidence in you that is reflected in my decision. I hope you can live up to that faith."

"I'll try," Michael replied honestly. He slanted a look at Mr. Evans. "I know how lucky I am."

"Good. Then I hereby grant your petition for emancipation," Hawthorne finished.

* * *

Ms. Topolski looked around her apartment office in confusion. Everything was exactly as she had left it, the door was still locked, the lights turned off, files cabinets shut tightly, papers scattered across her desk. It didn't appear as though anything had been touched or disturbed in anyway.

But her file on Atherton was missing.

* * *

Next Chapter: Never Let Go

Due: Sun 11/12


	52. Never Let Go

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: The beginning of this chapter takes place at Roswell High School at the same time that Michael is in Judge Hawthorne's chambers. So no one knows whether or not Michael's been granted emancipation yet.

* * *

Chapter Fifty-One: Never Let Go

"So, have you figured out a good time to go shopping? I was thinking maybe tomorrow."

Tess turned as the annoyingly high-pitched voice cut across the conversation she was having with Trudy. Pam was standing behind her, a wide smile on her face. Trudy shot a sidelong glance at Tess, who hesitated a moment before replying to Pam, "I don't know about tomorrow…"

"You aren't backing out, are you?" Pam asked with false disappointment. "I was so looking forward to going shopping, I have no new clothes."

Tess glanced down at Pam's low cut tank top, dark genes, and expensive shoes. She remembered suddenly that Pam's father owned some big company… real estate, maybe, or a chain of stores? Hotels? Motels? Supermarkets? She couldn't quite recall exactly what it was, but their family was one of the wealthiest in Roswell.

"I'm sure you can find someone else to go shopping with you," Tess replied icily. "If no one will do it willingly, then you could always pay them."

Pam flushed and spat, "I don't have to buy friends."

"Of course you don't," Tess murmured sarcastically. She turned and started talking to Trudy again, completely ignoring Pam.

"Well, at least I don't have to depend on sympathy to get the teachers to like me."

Tess turned around and gave Pam a hard stare, her eyes narrowing. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked in a dangerously low voice.

Pam bit her lip, realizing she had implied something she shouldn't have. She didn't particularly want to get into this discussion in the middle of the hallway, and so she said quickly, deferentially, "Nothing."

But Tess wouldn't let the subject drop. "Why do you think I use sympathy to get teachers to like me?" she pressed angrily. She placed her hands firmly on her hips and glared at Pam, and the other girl seemed to shrink slightly under her furious stare.

But Tess' confrontational stance also stung Pam enough for her to reply, "Well, given your history… you know, with the Hardings… everyone always feels so sorry for you…" She gave Tess a sly smile.

The argument would have turned nasty, and it would have done it quickly, but Trudy, realizing that both girls were stepping into dangerous territory, cut into the conversation. "You know, I'm not free to go shopping tomorrow afternoon, but what about today after school?"

Pam turned to Trudy with a look of relief on her face, but Tess glared at her friends and snapped, "Trudy!"

Trudy shrugged and leveled Tess a stare. She didn't want to start an argument here, not with Pam. Although she didn't like her, Pam was still dating Kyle, and that meant that she wasn't someone either Tess or Trudy could just blow off. Kyle was part of their group, and so by default, Pam was as well.

Tess sighed and acquiesced to the silent plea in Trudy's eyes. "Today after school is fine."

"Wonderful," Pam breathed a sigh of relief. "I'll see you in the parking lot at the end of the day then." She turned and walked away, silently thanking God that Trudy had intervened.

Tess watched Pam walk away, then turned around to say something to Trudy. She paused, however, when she caught sight of Ms. Topolski, standing at the far end of the hall. The guidance counselor was also watching Pam disappear, and Tess couldn't help but wonder if she had been eavesdropping on the conversation.

Unbidden, the paranoia from last night rose in her chest again.

She pushed the worry away, but made a mental note to discuss this with Max at some point.

She and Trudy walked away, and she wondered vaguely what time it was, and if Michael had been granted emancipation.

* * *

"What class do you have now?" Liz asked as she caught up with Max and placed a hand on his arm to stop him.

Max turned and looked down at her. "History," he replied. He glanced at his watch. "It's in ten minutes. Why?"

"I need to talk to you," Liz explained. Max raised an eyebrow and gave her a look that said quite clearly that he had other things besides her insecurities to worry about and couldn't this wait? But Liz reminded herself of her conversation with Alex and squared her shoulder's determinedly. "It will only take a few minutes."

"Fine," Max relented. He followed Liz as she guided him through the crowded hallway towards the eraser room. She stepped inside, and he followed, closing the door behind him. she squinted in the darkness of the tiny room and almost choked on the chalk dust in the air.

Max rubbed his hands over his forearms wearily and glanced at his watch again. He hadn't heard from Michael or his father yet, and he couldn't help but worry.

Liz, oblivious to Max's thoughts, said slowly, "I want to talk to you about what happened this weekend."

"Liz, if this is about the fact that I didn't tell you right away…"

"It's not," Liz interrupted. She licked her dry lips and then sighed and continued, "Well, it sort of is. It's just…" Suddenly she had absolutely no idea how to start this conversation. How could she demand that Max tell her what he thought of her and where they stood in their relationship? How could she ask him for explanations of his feelings and actions? It was so blunt and awkward and…

"Liz," Max cut across her thoughts, "whatever it is, just say it. I don't really have time to stand here in silence." His words were cold, and Liz bristled.

"What is wrong with you?" she spat.

"What's wrong with me?" Max demanded incredulously. "What is wrong with _you_? You're the one getting all upset about me not running to you the moment I found out that something was wrong. Honestly, Liz, Michael was in the hospital. I had other things on my mind!"

"I know!" Liz replied, frustrated. "I'm not saying I should have been the first person you called. I just… I'm your girlfriend, Max. I'm part of this group. You have to include me!"

"I am including you," Max defended himself. "I told you my secret, didn't I?"

Liz stepped back as though she had been slapped, and her back pressed up against the shelves behind her. She stared at Max for a moment, an unreadable look on her face, then asked in a quiet voice, "Is that all I am to you? Just one more person that knows your secret?"

"No, of course not," Max replied, shaking his head.

"Then what am I, Max?" Liz demanded. "You tell me you love me and we have a wonderful time at Homecoming, then you can barely be civil to me when I stop by your house the next morning. You insist that I'm part of the group and should be included, and then you order me to remain in Roswell while _you_ go to Marathon after _my_ best friend. What am I, Max? Do you even know?"

Max didn't say anything, just looked at the floor in silence. Liz ran a hand through her hair and studied his averted gaze. Then she shrugged, turned, and walked out of the eraser room.

After Liz had gone, Max slumped back against the wall. Liz had asked a very good question, what was she? He thought she was his girlfriend. He knew he loved her. But somehow their relationship kept running into problems. Everything would be absolutely wonderful, and then… and then it would hit a bump in the road.

It was his fault. All the bumps were alien related so they were all his fault. But they also weren't things he could completely control. He didn't ask for this, and he certainly didn't want it, but he was who he was, and he couldn't change that.

Not to mention, Michael was probably never going to speak to him again. The taciturn alien still harbored quite a bit of anger that Max had tricked him instead of just lending him his car. One more ruined relationship to attempt to fix.

It wasn't fair to Liz. He shouldn't have been that abrupt and cold with her. He _knew_ that. But right now he wasn't entirely sure what he was supposed to do.

He loved her. She deserved a boyfriend who would always be able to respect her and talk to her and treat her like more than just another person who knew his secret.

Dr. Drake was dead. Ms. Topolski was FBI. Somewhere out there was an alien killer who had now killed twice, maybe three times. If Ms. Topolski continued talking to Sheriff Valenti, it would only be a matter of time before he broke out of Tess' mind-warp.

Life was too complicated, too dangerous, too stressful.

He loved Liz.

He didn't want to let go of her. But he also wasn't sure that it was fair to her for him to keep holding on.

* * *

Maria felt a hand on her arm and spun around. She stared in surprise at Michael, who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. "Michael!" She lowered her voice and asked curiously, "What happened?"

Michael smiled grimly. "I'm free."

Maria grinned and nodded. "That's great," she said quickly. She stared up at Michael and thought about her previous conversation with Sean.

_Wait until you fall in love for the first time. Wait until you experience what we experienced. Then you'll understand. That kind of love… you don't let of it. Not if you can help it._

"Have you seen Isabel?" Michael asked, glancing around the hallway. "I wanted to tell her also."

Maria frowned and shook her head. Michael wasn't looking directly at her, and she wondered if he was avoiding her gaze. "Um, no, I haven't. I just saw Max, though, so…"

"No, I just wanted to talk to Isabel," Michael said quickly. He looked at Maria for a brief moment, then turned away. "Um, well… I guess I'll go look for her. See you around."

Maria nodded slowly at his awkward words and watched him walk away. The conversation had been short, but even so she could still feel the difference in the air. He was tense around her, and curt, and she wondered why. Ever since the conversation when he had told her that the kiss at Homecoming meant nothing, she had known that things would change between them. That he would change.

But she hadn't expected him to be so different.

_How do you know when it is time to let go?_

_You don't. At least… at least you don't always know. Sometimes you can't even recognize what the end looks like because you never saw it coming._

She bit her lip. Was it time to let go? They'd never had a relationship to start with, but the attraction was there. And she… she cared about him. And she was fairly certain that he cared about her.

She didn't want to let go. But maybe she didn't have a choice.

* * *

"I want answers, Ms. Topolski. That was part of the deal," Sheriff Valenti demanded.

Ms. Topolski listened to the Sheriff's voice at the other end of the phone line and debated her response. She couldn't tell him everything. Most importantly, she couldn't tell him about Tess. He was her father, and even if it wasn't biological, he still cared about her enough to question whether or not he should be helping the FBI. But she had to tell him something.

"We believe that aliens may exist," Ms. Topolski replied bluntly.

"Who do you suspect?" Valenti asked excitedly. He was so close to finally getting his answers.

"I think you know the answer to that," Ms. Topolski replied smoothly. "Max and Isabel Evans and Michael Guerin."

Valenti's head began to pound. It was as though something was happening, some change was taking place with his mind. Memories that he hadn't really thought about it months came streaming back into his mind. Emotions, suspicions, thoughts…

In the past, he knew, those suspicions had still been there, but he hadn't really thought about them. Every time he tried to focus on one, it was disappear into the dark recesses of his mind, out of his grasp. But now they were back, and he could think about each and every one, and he couldn't help but wonder what had kept him from thinking about them before now.

* * *

"Michael!" Isabel smiled in relief as she saw him approach her. She pushed her way through the crowd and quickly hugged him. "What happened?" she whispered urgently.

"I'm free," Michael replied, echoing his earlier answer to Maria.

"Oh, thank God," Isabel breathed. She hugged him again, then stepped back. She pushed a few strands of blonde hair out of her eyes and continued, "That's great news, Michael. Have you told Max yet?"

"No, I… haven't seen him," Michael replied. "Can you tell him for me?"

Isabel frowned at Michael. "Are you avoiding him?" she asked bluntly. She knew that her brother and his best friend were going to have issues to work through, but she hoped that they would be able to see the other's point of view and move on quickly. From the grim expression that settled over Michael's face, however, she knew it was going to be a while before they were reconciled.

"I just haven't seen him yet," Michael replied. Then he gripped Isabel by the arm and lead her out of the middle of the hallway and into a shadowed corner. A few other students gave surprised looks at Michael's actions, but Michael waited until they had walked away, then turned to Isabel.

"What is it?" Isabel asked in an undertone, suddenly worried.

Michael reached into his backpack and pulled out a file. He pressed it into Isabel's hands and said, "I found this in Ms. Topolski's apartment. Hold on to it for me, okay?"

Isabel glanced down at the file and noted that it was labeled 'Atherton.' She didn't understand what the significance of it could be, because Ms. Topolski could not know anything more about Atherton than they did. But she did as Michael requested, and shoved it into her backpack, burying it between two notebooks.

"Have you told Max or Tess that you have it?" she asked.

Michael shook his head. "I haven't really had a chance to look through it yet, so I don't know how important it is. But Ms. Topolski's going to have an eye on me now, seeing as she… well, this is all her fault, so…"

"What do you mean?" Isabel cut in, confused.

Michael raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you know?" he asked bitterly. "Ms. Topolski planned to have me removed from Hank's care so that I'd be forced to leave Roswell. She's the reason all this happened."

Isabel felt a hot anger fill her stomach at his words, but she forced herself not to jump to any rash decisions. "Well, she failed," Isabel pointed out, still wishing that she could do something to teach Ms. Topolski a lesson.

"Yeah…" Michael agreed. "But since it was her plan, I think it is better if I don't keep the file with me. Just in case."

Isabel shrugged. "I'll hold onto it. Don't worry about it."

"Thanks. Um…" Michael hesitated for a moment, then said slowly, "I need to ask you a really strange question."

Isabel raised an eyebrow. "Okay," she said curiously, wondering what it was about.

"Are you… have you… have you dreamt about me at all?" Michael asked finally.

Isabel stared at him in complete shock. The color rose in her cheeks, and her eyes widened slightly as she felt heat suffuse her face. Whatever questioned she had been expecting, it wasn't that.

"I guess I do sometimes," Isabel said after thinking over the question for a moment. "I dream about us, and about you and Max and Tess, and that sort of thing…"

"No, I mean… I mean about me. Just me," Michael cut her off, shifting his weight nervously from one foot to the other. "Like, um… the two of us. Together."

Isabel stared at him for a moment, then shook her head slowly, confusion etched into her face. "Not anymore than I dream about me and Max or me and Tess," she replied. She knew it wasn't answering the question, because she knew what Michael had really meant. But if she answered _that_ question, if she told him the truth, everything would change. And she couldn't let that happen.

At first, after Max had healed Liz and Michael had started hanging out with Maria, she had worried that she was loosing her family. They had all broken off into pairs, Max and Liz, Michael and Maria. Even Tess was sometimes closer to Kyle than to her other family.

But then somehow, it had changed. And Michael had come back to her, and Max had come back to her, and it was the three of them again.

Except that Michael was not talking to Max.

And if she told Michael what she dreamt about at night, then their relationship would change as well. She didn't want that to happen, she didn't want to complicate things. She wanted him to stay her best friend and her family, and not become anything else. Anything else would just be too complicated.

She didn't want complicated right now.

Tess had just asked her to go shopping that afternoon, and she had agreed. That was complicated enough.

Michael met Isabel's gaze and nodded slowly. He decided not to continue that particular line of questioning because he saw something in Isabel's eyes when he had mentioned the word 'together.' Some emotion had flickered through her eyes so quickly he had barely been able to recognize it, but he had. And he knew what it was.

Isabel had just lied to him.

She had pretended not to understand the significance of the word 'together.' She had pretended not to understand his question.

She had lied.

He was dreaming about her, and she was dreaming about him.

And suddenly he wanted to get as far away from Isabel as physically possible.

* * *

Maria had stopped dead in her tracks as she listened to Michael's question. She had perfectly understood the emphasis and stress he had put on the word 'together,' and she knew what it meant.

Michael was dreaming about Isabel.

Romantically.

That was why he had gone to Homecoming with Isabel. Not to make Maria jealous, but because he actually wanted to go with Isabel. That was why he had said their kiss meant nothing. Because it actually did mean nothing.

He wanted to be with Isabel.

She didn't hear Isabel's response to Michael's question, so she didn't know if the other alien had been dreaming about Michael. But… well, Isabel had agreed to go to Homecoming with Michael, so that meant something, didn't it? And they were close… Isabel was stunning, and powerful, and his family… not to mention that they were actually the same species…

Neither Michael or Isabel had seen Maria yet, and for that she was grateful. She turned quickly, and walked away, not wanting to be anywhere near Michael at the moment.

_How do you know when it is time to let go?_

_You don't. At least… at least you don't always know. Sometimes you can't even recognize what the end looks like because you never saw it coming._

* * *

Next Chapter: The Devil Wears Prada

Due: Sun 11/19


	53. The Devil Wears Prada

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: So I am completely aware that this is just a transitional chapter. Basically, it is setting everything up for the next few chapters. It is a little light on actual substance, but it does have some points that will be important later on.

* * *

Chapter Fifty-Two: The Devil Wears Prada

"Remind me again why we are doing this?" Sara asked under her breath as she stared at a tight red tank top on display in the store window.

"Because Trudy is afraid of confrontation," Tess replied in annoyance. She glanced behind her, watching as Trudy and Isabel chatted quietly. Pam was standing a few feet behind Isabel, watching her with a pleased expression on her face. Jessica had bailed on the group, claiming she had a prior commitment, which, of course, they all knew was not true. But the excuse had gotten her out of the shopping trip, so it was just the five girls now.

"And you didn't say _anything_ to Pam after she said that about the Hardings?" Sara asked, slightly incredulous. Walking away from a comment like that was not something Tess did.

Tess shrugged and didn't answer. She wasn't really sure why she had allowed Trudy to intervene the way she did and she really didn't want to get into a discussion with Sara about it. Turning, she looked back at Trudy and Isabel again and asked, "Do we want to go in here?" She gestured to the store in front of her.

"I like that tank top," Sara remarked, pointing at the top in the window.

Isabel cast a speculative look at the top and shook her head. "It's not your color, Sara," she decided at last. "It has too much orange in it."

All eyes turned to Isabel, and she flushed, realizing that she had just offered clothing advice to one of the popular group.

But Trudy frowned for a moment and then agreed slowly, "I think she's right about that. Go for a red that has blue undertones, it will work better with your complexion."

Sara shrugged. "Okay," she replied, sending a confused look over at Tess, who had purposefully ignored the entire exchange.

Tess met her gaze for a moment, then sighed and said, "Come on, let's just go into the boutique. I'm sure they'll have something with the right shade of red for Sara." She stepped past Sara and walked briskly into the store, the other girls drifting in behind her.

"So, is there anything in particular you are looking for?" Pam asked softly, leaning in towards Isabel. She shot a triumphant smirk at Trudy and continued, "I'm better than most at picking out clothes."

Trudy ignored the comment and started to browse through the racks of clothing. Isabel glanced at Pam, then slanted a look at Tess. The fourth alien was talking quietly to Sara, and appeared to have decided that ignoring both Pam and Isabel was best option open to her. Isabel bit her lip and glanced over at Trudy.

She liked Trudy better than Pam. _Everyone_ liked Trudy better than Pam. She didn't want to hurt the other girl's feelings.

"I'm just going to look around," Isabel announced at last. "I don't really have anything specific that I need." She turned away from Pam and walked over to a selection of skirts.

As she flipped through the skirts, she thought back to her earlier conversation with Michael. He had asked her if she had been dreaming about them, and she had said no. But what was she supposed to say to that? He was Michael, she shouldn't be dreaming about him in that way.

And he shouldn't be dreaming about her like that. He liked Maria, and she liked Alex. Well, sort of. Actually, she had no idea what she thought of Alex anymore. She assumed she liked him because she had gone out of her way to make him jealous during the dance, but…

At Homecoming, people had paid attention to her. Jocks. People who played football. Popular people. People with perfect hair and perfect clothes. And she had liked that. She had liked the attention.

She frowned, and wondered if that made her a bad person.

She picked up a skirt and stared at it for a moment. It was turquoise, with a pattern of navy blue flowers spilling across it. The material was light, and the skirt was about knee length. It was pretty, but she didn't really need another skirt. Still, she figured it wouldn't hurt to try it on, and she draped the skirt over her arm.

"What are you doing?" Sara demanded, aghast.

Isabel jumped, having not realized that Sara was standing next to her. She raised an eyebrow in confusion and replied, "I'm trying on a skirt."

Sara shook her head. "We're going shopping together, Isabel," she explained patiently. "You can't try on a skirt without showing it to at least one other person first. You need someone's approval of it _before_ you try it on." She shook her head and snatched the skirt from Isabel's hands.

"But… shouldn't I get someone's approval after I try it on so that they can see what it looks like on me?" Isabel wondered.

Sara rolled her eyes and replied, "No, you need _everyone's_ approval after you've tried on the skirt." She looked up at Isabel confused expression and sighed. "Honestly, how do you ever manage to go shopping with people if you don't know these basic rules?"

"I don't go shopping with people," Isabel replied without even thinking about the answer. Sara looked at her in surprise, and even Tess, who had been attempting to ignore the conversation, glanced over at the two girls. Trudy and Pam walked over to Isabel and each eyed the skirt with a scrutinizing gaze.

"What do you mean?" Sara asked, not understanding. "You go shopping by yourself?"

"Well, Max and Michael aren't really the shopping type…you know, being guys and all."

Trudy laughed at that and nodded. "True," she agreed.

"What about Maria or Liz?" Pam asked.

Tess' gaze flickered quickly over to Pam, and she took in the calculating look in Pam's eyes. Again, the suspicion grew, and although she tried to push it aside, it clung to her mind, screaming at her to be careful.

"Oh, well, we're not really friends," Isabel replied carelessly.

"But you hang out a lot," Pam pointed out. "And Liz is dating your brother."

"Well, they only started dating a couple months ago," Isabel replied with a shrug. "And we weren't really friends before…"

Pam nodded. She turned away from Isabel and caught sight of Tess, who was staring at her coldly. But before she could say anything, Tess had turned away and was talking to Isabel. "Well, then you're lucky to have us," she commented dryly, her tone dripping with sarcasm.

"I like the skirt," Trudy announced, then she turned and walked away. Sara, too, turned away, and busied herself in a pile of jeans on a table closer to the door. Pam gave Tess one last look before beginning a search for clothing for herself.

Tess grabbed Isabel's arm and dragged her away from the other three girls. As soon as they were far enough away to not be overheard, she lowered her voice and said firmly, "Keep your mouth shut around Pam."

"Look, Tess, if this is something about Pam and Trudy, I'm not taking sides…"

"It isn't," Tess cut in. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "I don't know what it is, Isabel. Just… just stay away from her." She walked away, and Isabel stared after her in confusion and worry.

* * *

Michael glanced around the Crashdown for a moment, before his gaze settled on Maria. She had her back to him, and had not yet noticed his presence. He quickly chose a booth in her section and slid into it.

It had been a tense day at school. After his conversation with Isabel, he had done his best to avoid her. Unfortunately, as he was also avoiding Max, that hadn't really left anyone to talk to. He had spent most of the day ignoring everyone, and although both Max and Isabel had tried to engage him in conversation more than once during the day, he waved off their efforts and remained monosyllabic as usual.

Finally, towards the end of the day, he had decided that he simply could no longer take being at school, and had skipped the last period of the day. In retrospect, it was probably not the best decision, given that it was his first day of emancipation, but he didn't really care.

Maria glanced over her shoulder and noticed him. He smiled up at her, but she just gave him an unreadable stare. Walking over to the booth, she asked quietly, "What would you like to order?"

There was something off in her voice, something Michael couldn't quite place.

"Saturn Rings and a Cherry Coke," Michael replied.

Maria nodded and scribbled the order down on her order pad. "It'll be a few minutes," she said softly, not meeting Michael's gaze.

Michael reached out and caught Maria's hand. "Are you alright?" he asked, concerned.

Maria yanked her hand out of his grasp as though he had burned her. "I'm fine," she replied coldly, glaring at him. She gave an exaggerated glance around the diner and asked pointedly, "Where's Isabel?"

The inference behind the comment was completely lost on Michael, who just shrugged and replied, "I think she went shopping with Tess and the others."

Maria bit her bottom lip and said, "Oh, okay." She hesitated, wondering if there was anymore she wanted to say. Michael was staring at her, and from the look in his eyes, she could tell he was completely oblivious to what she was thinking. There was really no point in talking to him about it since he clearly didn't even understand why she was upset. Not wanting to waste any more time, she spun on her heel and walked away.

Michael was about to stand up and go after her, when the door of the diner swung open, and Max walked in. He scanned the booths quickly, his eyes immediately falling onto Michael. Walking over to his friend, he slipped into the empty seat at the booth and said without preamble, "You got emancipation."

"I did," Michael replied stonily, sinking back into his seat.

"Isabel told me," Max continued. "You didn't even bother to tell me yourself." He folded his arms across his chest and glared at Michael.

"You didn't bother to tell me that you were actually calling your father instead of just lending me your car," Michael shot back angrily.

"I was trying to help you," Max argued, narrowing his eyes.

"You lied to me," Michael snapped, lowering his voice so that the nosy diners would not overhear the argument. "You told me you would help me, and you didn't."

"I helped you," Max countered, "I just didn't help you the way you wanted to be helped. And your way wasn't the right way!"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, Maxwell?" Michael hissed. "Do you really think you have the right to decide what I can and can't do?"

"Do you really think that you leaving town was only going to affect you? That Isabel, Tess, and I wouldn't have to deal with the consequences either?" Max asked pointedly.

"That's not the point," Michael responded with a careless shrug.

"Then what is the point?" Max questioned, leaning back in his seat.

"You lied to me," Michael repeated. "I asked you for help, you promised you would give me your car. You lied."

Max was silent for a moment, not sure of what to say. He stared around the diner in frustration. Maybe he shouldn't have lied to Michael. But he had made the right decision, he was sure of that. He had kept Michael from doing something stupid, and right now keeping the four of them safe was the only thing that really mattered.

Unbidden, the thought of Liz came to mind. Clearly, she would take issue with his assessment that the safety of his family was the only really important thing at the moment. He wondered vaguely what she would think of this argument he was having with Michael.

Finally, Max spoke, switching the subject. "You skipped your last period."

"You going to lecture me on that as well?" Michael demanded, rolling his eyes.

Max shrugged. "The teacher asked about it, Michael. You can't skip class on your first day of emancipation. What kind of message does that send?"

"That I'm a screw up who can't do anything right," Michael snapped back. "But, hey, everyone thinks that about me anyway."

"I don't," Max said softly.

Michael opened his mouth to say something, but Maria returned at that moment with his order. She placed the onion rings and soda in front of Michael, gave Max a cool nod, and disappeared again without saying a word.

Max raised a questioning eyebrow at Michael. "Everything okay with her?" he asked, gesturing towards Maria.

Michael glowered at Max for a moment, then said, "How would I know? Why don't you go ask Liz?"

Max hesitated, not entirely sure what to make of that comment. Finally, he decided to return to Michael's previous statement, and said, "Not everyone thinks you're a screw up."

Michael picked at an onion ring for a moment. "Right," he drawled sarcastically. "Like that isn't the very first thing every adult in this town thinks of when they look at me."

"It's not what my parents think," Max replied. "And it's obviously not what the judge thinks." Michael didn't say anything, so Max finally shrugged and stood up. "Look," he said tiredly, "if you want to be mad at me, then be mad at me. I obviously can't change your mind on that one. And I shouldn't have lied to you, and I shouldn't have called my father, and I shouldn't have screwed everything up like this. But if you could just take a moment to step away from your anger and think about it, isn't it possible that even if what I did was wrong, it was also right?" He stepped away from Michael and walked out of the diner.

* * *

"What about these?" Isabel asked, holding up a pair of jeans. Despite every attempt on her part to separate herself from the other girls, she had to reluctantly admit that she was having a good time. At least with Trudy.

Trudy glanced at the jeans and shook her head almost immediately. "No, they're too flared."

"Too flared? Is that possible?" Isabel asked, surprised.

Trudy laughed and said, "Do you really want to look like a hippie?" Isabel shook her head to that, and Trudy nodded. "Didn't think so."

"I like them," Pam said, wandering over to Isabel. "They're a good color for you. Better than the pair you were looking at in that other store." They'd been to five or six different boutiques, and so far everything had gone fairly well. Tess was spending most her time with Sara, and Isabel was shopping primarily with Trudy. Pam drifted back and forth between the two groups, but she had yet to start any arguments.

"They are a good color," Trudy conceded, "but they still make you look like a hippie."

"But Isabel's tall enough so she can pull it off," Pam countered. "If she was shorter it wouldn't work, but she's not…"

Isabel nodded thoughtfully and glanced over at Sara and Tess. Sara was ignoring the conversation, but Tess had looked up with a worried expression on her face. She was staring hard at Pam, but Pam wasn't looking at her. Isabel raised an eyebrow at Tess, wondering what had made the other girl worried.

"…and neither are you," Pam continued, turning to Trudy.

Sara's head snapped up at that comment and Trudy stiffened slightly. Pam was smiling innocently, and Isabel couldn't help but feel that everyone else knew something she didn't. Tess' face had hardened, and Sara seemed apprehensive, as though they were gearing up for something that Isabel was completely clueless to.

She realized too late what it was. The three girls had been waiting the entire afternoon for any indication that Pam was going to start an argument, and something about her voice had tipped them off to the fact that the argument was about to start right now.

But by the time Isabel had come to this realization, Pam had already smirked at Trudy and said, "I think Kyle likes jeans like that. He thinks they're sexy. It's too bad you never wore them. Maybe things would have been different if you had."

"Different?" Trudy asked, feigning confusion. "Different how?"

Pam shrugged. "Oh, you know…" She purposefully turned her back on Trudy and began to rummage through a rack of dresses. "I wonder if Liz wears bellbottoms?"

"What would that have to do with anything?" Isabel asked, confused. Both Tess and Sara glared at her, and she realized that Liz had a lot more to do with this argument than she had previously understood. It took a moment, but then she remembered that Trudy had originally broken up with Kyle because he kept obsessing about Liz. She bit her lip, realizing that asking that question was just giving Pam an opening to for even more bitter remarks.

"Well, Kyle couldn't really keep his eyes off of her," Pam said. She glanced over her shoulder at Isabel and gave a wicked smirk.

"He's over her now," Isabel shot back.

"Yeah… but… well, it took him a while, didn't it?" Pam replied. Trudy swallowed painfully and the air was suddenly heavy and tense. Isabel frowned, wondering what Pam's comment was supposed to imply. She felt as though she was, yet again, stuck in the middle of a conversation that was happening over her head.

Trudy caught the look on confusion on Isabel's face and said bluntly, "What Pam is implying is that I wasn't enough to get Kyle's mind off of Liz, and that Kyle didn't really move on until he was dating her."

A silence met that explanation as Isabel mentally chastised herself for giving Pam yet another opportunity to mock Trudy. She was trying to help, and it was just making everything worse.

Sara glanced at Trudy in surprise, it was rare for anyone to so blatantly state an affront like that. Usually arguments were done with malicious euphemisms and implications, not flat out insults.

"But, actually," Trudy continued, "I got over Kyle a long time ago so I don't really care what he thinks of Liz anymore. After all, Jason's a great boyfriend."

Pam raised an eyebrow. "Oh, so are you and Jason actually dating?" she asked sweetly. "I thought you were just trying to make Kyle jealous."

"And what exactly do you think Kyle's doing with you?" Sara snapped.

"How much do you really want to know?" Pam asked, tilting her head to the side and raising one eyebrow suggestively. Trudy's face paled dramatically as she realized what Pam was implying, and Sara's hands clenched into fists. But it was Tess who spoke up, intervening before Pam could say anything else.

"I really don't want to hear about my brother's… _activities_… with you, Pam," she said distastefully.

Pam laughed and replied, "Well, I wasn't going to be explicit." It was a comment that, had it been made by Trudy, Tess would have accepted with a grin or a rolling over her eyes. It was a comment that, coming from one of her friends, would have been a joke. But coming from Pam, it was an insult to both Trudy and Kyle, and Tess narrowed her eyes dangerously.

Sara took one look at Tess' face and knew they were entering dangerous territory. Although she would have enjoyed watching Tess rip Pam apart, she also knew that, as Tess and Trudy's friend, it was her job to divert the conversation now, before it got even uglier. She glanced at the jeans Isabel was still holding, and brought the conversation back around to the original topic.

"Well, I think those jeans make whoever is wearing them look like an upside-down mushroom," she declared, pulling the jeans from Isabel's hands and discarding them carelessly onto a nearby table.

"Everyone has there own taste," Pam said smoothly. She glanced down at Trudy's pants and said, "And, of course, I suppose a lot of that has to do with how much money your family has."

It was no secret that Trudy's parents weren't among the wealthiest in Roswell. She rarely wore designer clothing and never had great amounts of money to carelessly throw away the way Pam did. Of course, they weren't poor either, not by anyone's standards. But still, the comment was meant to insult, and Trudy flushed crimson with embarrassment.

Isabel watched the expression on Trudy's face and couldn't help but feel a surge of anger at Pam. She was hardly even friends with Trudy, but the girl had gone out of her way to be nice to her during this entire afternoon, and Pam was being unnecessarily cruel.

Isabel spun to face Pam, her hands on her hips. "And everything's about money?" she demanded. "Well, I guess it makes sense that you think that. Isn't that how it works in your family? You buy affection?"

Pam opened her mouth to say something, but the words were caught in her throat. She swallowed, glared at Isabel, and shoved past the other girls and out of the shop.

Sara suddenly laughed and gave Isabel a smile. "That was brilliant," she complemented the other girl. "I can't believe you actually got her to leave." Trudy smiled gratefully at Isabel, clearly relieved that Pam was no longer there to insult her. Even Tess was giving Isabel a slightly approving look.

Isabel flushed and shrugged carelessly. Wanting to divert the conversation from her recent comment, she grabbed a shirt and held it up. "What do you think of this?"

Both Sara and Trudy opened their mouths to respond, but Tess beat them to it. "Wrong color," she replied. "It's a good cut, but it would be better in a dark blue." She glanced at the piles of shirt folded neatly on the table and pulled out a blue one. "There, this is good."

Isabel took the shirt, shocked that Tess had actually deigned to give her advice. Trudy and Sara exchanged an amused look, obviously Isabel's comment to Pam had changed Tess' mind about her. Tess noticed that everyone was looking at her in a mixture of laughter and surprise, and she glared at them in annoyance.

"What? It _is_ a better color," she defended herself, brushing a few loose strands of blonde hair out of her blue eyes.

Isabel smiled, "Thanks."

* * *

"Maria, what's wrong?" Michael asked, standing up and following Maria back to the counter. Max had left the diner about half an hour ago, and Maria hadn't spoken to him once during that time. She had just cleared his empty glass and plate without a single word and walked away.

Maria turned around and frowned at him. "What do you mean?"

"You've been avoiding me," Michael replied. "And don't deny it, you haven't even spoken more than two words to me since I got here."

"I'm working," Maria explained. "I'm busy."

Michael looked around the diner. It was almost completely empty, and everyone there had already been served. There was no possible way that Maria was busy.

"No, you're not," he countered.

Maria sighed. "Look, I think… I just think we should take a break."

Michael stared at her in complete confusion. "Take a break from what?" he asked, not understanding her suggestion. As far as he knew, there wasn't anything for them to take a break from.

"From this. Us," Maria replied, gesturing to herself and Michael.

"There is no us," Michael said quickly.

Maria shrugged. "Then it shouldn't be too difficult to take a break," she said simply.

"You're not making any sense," Michael said in frustration. He really didn't want to have to decipher Maria's jumbled words right now. Couldn't she just say what was on her mind?

"Look, I… my mother's still in the hospital, recovering. And Sean… well, he's still here, and I have to figure out if I want him to be my father… I mean… if I want to think of him as my father… And I don't… I don't have time for this… this thing that we do."

"What thing?" Michael demanded in exasperation.

"You kissing me. Us having chemistry. This… this weird relationship we've got," Maria tried to explain. She shook her head in frustration, not quite able to put her thoughts in order. "Look, I know… I know you don't want to be with me, but we still… we have something. Some sort of friendship-relationship thing. And it is confusing, and I don't want confusing right now. I have enough of that in my life."

"What are you saying?" Michael asked.

"I think we should take a break from seeing each other," Maria said at last. It was hard to say the words because she really didn't mean them, but she also knew it was probably for the best. "I can go deal with my Mom and Sean, and you can go be with Isabel and then… when everything else is all figure out… we can be friends. Okay?"

"What?" Michael was floored by her comment. "I don't want to be with Isabel." And he realized as he said the words how very true they were.

"You dream about her," Maria murmured. She wondered suddenly if Michael ever dreamt about her, or was Isabel the only woman in his dreams? "I just… I don't want complicated right now." And she walked away from Michael, disappearing into the back room.

Michael stared at her, all the pieces of the puzzle finally falling into place. But Maria was already gone, and it was too late to call her back.

* * *

When Jim got home from work that evening, Tess took one look at him and stood up abruptly, her face paling slightly.

"Tess?" Jim stared at her in concern. "Are you alright?"

Tess nodded and forced a smile. "I'm fine," she said simply before hurrying towards her room. She quickly closed her door and grabbed her cell phone, then dialed a number. As she listened to the rings on the other end of the line, she wondered who Jim had spoken to today.

Ms. Topolski? That was the obvious guess, but she wasn't entirely sure…

Whoever he had spoken to, that person had brought up questions about the aliens. Enough questions to reawaken Jim's desire for answers.

"Tess?"

"Max, we have a problem," Tess said swiftly, casting one more apprehensive look at her door. "Jim's broken through the mind-warp."

* * *

Next Chapter: Psychoanalyze

Due: Sun 11/26


	54. Psychoanalyze

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: This chapter ended up being pretty long, hence the one day delay. Also, it is important to remember that, in the last chapter, Pam stormed away after Isabel made the comment about buying affection. Why that bothered her so much will be explained in this chapter.

* * *

Chapter Fifty-Three: Psychoanalyze

"So, Michael, have you found jobs or an apartment yet?" Mr. Evans asked casually as he took a seat next to Michael on the sofa. After his emancipation was declared, Michael had accepted Mr. Evans offer to stay at his house while he looked for an apartment. Of course, this meant that he was staying in the same house as Max, and the tension in the air between the two was palpable. Mr. and Mrs. Evans had not commented on it, however, knowing that this was an issue that could only be resolved by Michael and Max.

After dinner, Max had retreated to his room, leaving Michael and Isabel sitting in the living room in an awkward silence. Mr. Evans joined and inquired politely about their days before leading into his question to Michael.

"I looked after school," Michael replied, "and I found a couple possibilities…" He hadn't looked that hard, though. He had been so thrown off by Maria's comment to him, and his own dreams about Isabel were not helping the matter. Distracted as he was by social and alien problems, he had not really been focused on the legal matters at hand.

"For apartments or jobs?" Mr. Evans pressed.

"For jobs," Michael explained. "I figured I should have a job before I try to rent an apartment because people are more likely to rent to someone who they know can actually pay."

Mr. Evans smiled. "True," he agreed approvingly. "Well, if you need any help looking for apartments, Diane and I would be happy to help, as I am sure Max and Isabel would."

"Thank you," Michael replied gruffly, if a little uncomfortably. He was simply not used to adults acting this way around him. He always knew that the Evans cared about him, but now they had actually gone out of their way to help him, and it still galled his pride that he needed to be helped.

"Well, I've got to do some reading for work," Mr. Evans continued, standing up, "but you are welcome to stay here for as long as it takes to find an apartment." And he left the room, disappearing down the hallway.

Isabel turned and watched as her father walked away, then glanced back at Michael. She was silent for a moment, studying his features, reading the lines of his face. It had been a while since she had looked at him… really _looked_ at him… and it surprised her to see how much had changed. She used to think of his as being made up of hard angles and rough edges, but something was smoother and more… gentle? And his eyes were older and wearier, but then she supposed that, after everything that had happened, they were all wearier.

"How was your shopping trip?" Michael asked at last, glancing away so as to avoid Isabel's penetrating gaze.

Isabel shrugged. "Okay, I guess," she replied. Honestly, she had absolutely no idea how she had managed to get herself sucked into this entire mess, but as they were each departing for the evening, Sara has actually invited her to eat lunch with them tomorrow.

Michael stared back at her sharply, and asked in an unusually shrewd tone, "Are you going to turn into Tess?"

Isabel laughed and shook her head. "No, of course not," she replied. She smiled slightly at Michael, and then suddenly saw in his face a memory of something older and much more distant, a dream she'd just forgotten.

She looked down at her hands.

Michael frowned at her. He knew he should ask her about the dreams again, knew he should call her on her earlier lie. She was dreaming about him, and they needed to talk about what it meant. But he couldn't form the words and so he let the opportunity pass and lapsed into a tired silence.

"Have you talked to Max yet?" Isabel asked, changing the topic.

Michael stiffened and said nothing. Isabel sighed and ran a hand through her hair.

"I think you should," she continued. In the kitchen, she heard the sound of the dishwasher starting up, and knew that her mother had finished washing the dinner dishes.

Michael glanced over at Isabel and shrugged. "Whatever you say," he replied sarcastically. He had no intention of speaking to Max about anything, and Isabel was not going to change his opinion on that.

"Max was trying to help you!" Isabel hissed, lowering her voice slightly and glaring at Michael.

"I didn't need his help," Michael snapped back. "At least not that type of help."

"Really?" Isabel rolled her eyes. "So you were thinking perfectly clearly and logically at the time?" she asked acidly.

Michael didn't say anything, and Isabel leaned back on the sofa. The door behind her opened, and her mother stepped out of the kitchen, gave them both a brief smile, then slipped into the hallway and out of sight. Isabel turned in her seat, watching until her mother was gone, then looked back at Michael and waited for a response.

Finally, Michael shrugged and said, "It should have been a decision I got to make."

"It affected all of us," Isabel replied pointedly.

Michael gave Isabel a hard stare. "Maybe," he conceded reluctantly, "but not the same way it affected me." This was his life, and no one else had the right to make this particular decision for him.

"We were just worried that you were going to make a decision that you would regret later," Isabel said delicately, watching the annoyance flickering through Michael's eyes.

Michael stood abruptly, glaring at Isabel. "You were worried that I was going to screw up. That's what everyone thinks of me, isn't it? You, Max, your parents, even Tess… I'm just the one who always screws up." He hesitated for a moment, then said coldly, "At least I was honest, Isabel. I told you about the dreams, I told Max what I was planning to do. You lied to me and told me you weren't dreaming of me, Max lied to me and said he would help me leave Roswell. Maybe I'm the screw up, but you don't seem much better."

And stalked towards the front door, shoving it open and stepping out into the fading light. Isabel twisted in her seat and watched him through the windows as he stood on the lawn and stared up at the sky. Then she closed her eyes and wearily massaged her temples, listening to the wind rattle the windowpanes. She knew she should get up and talk to Michael, but she wasn't entirely sure what she would say.

Then she heard the sound of footsteps, and opened her eyes to see Max walking towards her, his face lined with worry. Without preamble, he dropped into the seat next to her and whispered under his breath, "I just spoke to Tess. Valenti broke out of the mind-warp."

Isabel sighed and glanced back out the windows at Michael's stiff profile. Then she turned to Max and gave a short nod. "What do we do now?"

Max shrugged and said bluntly, "I don't know."

Life never seemed to get easier.

* * *

"Elizabeth Parker?"

Liz spun around at the sound of her name and stared at the man who had entered the diner. She was about to inform him that they were closing for the evening when she recognized him, and the words died on her lips. She swallowed and started in confusion, "Mr… um…"

"Sean," Sean cut in with a smile. "Just call me Sean."

"Okay, Sean," Liz agreed. She glanced around the empty diner, then said hesitantly, "Is there something I can do for you?"

"Actually, I was wondering if you had a moment to talk?" Sean inquired with a hesitant smile. He gestured towards one of the booths, and Liz nodded slowly, walking over to the booth and sliding into it. Sean took the seat across from her, and the two stared at each other in silence.

"What did you want to talk about?" Liz asked.

"Maria," Sean replied. He leaned back in the seat and surveyed Liz with scrutiny. "Has she told you about… well, everything?"

"You mean that you aren't her real father and that her real father was a… rapist?" Liz asked, her voice dropping as she whispered the last word.

"I'm worried about her," Sean said. He paused for a moment, then said, "I've never been in her life, and so I suppose I don't really have the right to think of her as my daughter, but… I loved her mother and… Maria is so important to Amy. And so… so she's important to me also."

"Loved?" Liz questioned. At Sean's blank look, she elaborated, "You said you loved Amy. Past tense. Do you not love her anymore?"

Sean shrugged. If he found anything weird about discussing his feelings with a sixteen-year-old girl he had only just recently met, he said nothing about it. Instead, he explained, "I loved the woman I married all those years ago. I don't know this Amy anymore. I think I would still love her, but it's hard to know."

Liz accepted this quietly, then asked, "What exactly did you want to talk to me about? Is Maria… I mean, how is she doing?"

"You would probably know more than I do," Sean replied with a sad smile. "I've talked to her some, but… well, things are difficult, as you might imagine."

"She's scared," Liz sighed. "She's scared because her mother is in the hospital, and everything she ever thought she knew about you and her birth are apparently not true. It's a big change, and she's… she's overwhelmed."

"I know," Sean said slowly. "I just… She needs a good friend right now. She needs you."

"She's got me," Liz said firmly. After her recent falling out with Max, she had more time on her hands, and perhaps she should take the opportunity to review her priorities. She loved Max, and if they could just talk about this, she would be more than willing to forgive him. But he couldn't talk, or maybe it was that he didn't have time to, but either way, their relationship was slowly falling apart. So she had plenty of time to focus on being a good friend, and that was exactly what Maria needed right now.

"Good," Sean said with an emphatic nod. There was an awkward silence, then he ran a hand through his hair and continued, "Well, that was pretty much all I came here for."

Liz raised an eyebrow. "You just came to tell me I should be a good friend?" It seemed like an awful lot of trouble to go to just to deliver that message.

Sean flushed, embarrassed. "Is this too overprotective? I've never had to look out for a kid before, I don't…"

"No," a bitter voice said from behind Liz. "You're doing just fine." Liz and Sean turned to stare at Mr. Parker who had wandered into the diner to find his daughter. He was staring coolly at Sean, and he muttered acidly, "Of course, not leaving in the first place would have been better."

"Dad…" Liz interjected, but Mr. Parker continued breezily as though he had not heard his daughter speak.

"I guess that was just too much to ask for, wasn't it?" Although he had a pleasant smile fixed to his face, his eyes were narrowed into thin slits of ice. "After all, who wants to deal with those first sixteen years? They're just too messy."

"I didn't just leave her," Sean said, standing and staring defiantly at Mr. Parker. "It wasn't a simple decision I made one morning. I had to think about it. It was complex. And you don't understand the…"

"You're right, I don't understand," Mr. Parker agreed with a nod. "I don't understand how you could leave. I don't understand how you could justify leaving. Do you really think it matters how complicated your decision was? You still made the choice to leave. You still abandoned your family, and no one cares how much you regret it. You were… and still are… wrong."

"You don't know anything of what happened," Sean protested.

"I know enough," Mr. Parker answered. He folded his arms across his chest and stated matter-of-factly, "If you expected a warm reception from any of Amy's friends, I am sorry to have to disappoint you. But let me warn you, just because you've decided to show up now does not mean you have any say in Amy or Maria's lives. If I see anything I don't like, I won't hesitate to have the Sheriff run you out of town." A smile tugged at the corners of his lips, turning his expression into a smirk. "After all, given Jim's current disposition towards you, convincing him that you shouldn't be here won't be that difficult."

"You're entitled to your opinion," Sean replied calmly. "And if that means that you hate me, I can accept that." He glanced at Liz for a moment. "I guess I'm not welcome in the diner any longer. Just keep in mind what I said, okay?"

Liz nodded and slanted a look at her father. He was still glaring at Sean. "Okay," she muttered, and Sean turned and left the diner. As the door closed behind him, Sean turned and glanced back at her. Mr. Parker placed a hand firmly on his daughter's shoulder and guided her towards the backroom of the diner. Liz gave Sean one last look, then allowed her father to lead her away.

On the sidewalk, Sean closed his eyes for a moment, thinking. He was not going to receive a warm welcome from any of the parents, that much was obvious. But he had Maria on his side, and he was fairly certain he had Liz. They were the only two who knew the truth about Maria's birth, and the only two who would look towards him that kindly. Still, if he could get Liz and Maria to trust him, it was only a matter of time before the King and the Second followed.

* * *

"Okay, so was anyone paying attention in history? Because I think I fell asleep," Sara complained as she dropped her books onto the table and took a seat next to Jessica.

"Yeah, you and everyone else in the class," Isabel replied with a smile. Sara laughed in agreement, and Jessica gave an appreciative nod. Isabel inwardly marveled at how easy it was to talk to these girls once she was in the group.

"Where are Tess and Trudy?" Jessica asked, scanning the quad.

"There they are," Sara replied, pointing to the farthest doors of the school. Tess and Trudy were walking towards the others, followed by Kyle, Cliff, Chris, and to Sara's intense annoyance, Pam.

Jessica rolled her eyes at the sight of Pam and stared back down at her lunch.

"What did we talk about in history?" Isabel asked. "I think I woke up around the time we were discussing something having to do with guns."

"Yeah, I think we were talking about a war," Sara agreed.

"What war?" Jessica asked.

"Who knows?" Isabel yawned. "That class is such a waste of time."

Tess had joined the others by this point, and she took the seat next to Isabel. A moment later Trudy slipped into the seat next to Sara. Chris, Cliff, and Kyle gathered around the end of the table, and Pam took the seat in between Kyle and Cliff.

For a moment, the group just chatted easily about nothing in particular, and Isabel let her attention wander. She glanced out over the quad and caught sight of Michael, standing by himself, in the shade of a few of trees that dotted the grass lawn. His profile was turned to her, and she followed his gaze to see him staring at Max, who was trying to talk to Liz. Liz kept turning away from him, and finally Max threw his hands up in the air and stalked away.

Isabel wondered vaguely how long her brother and Liz would be at odds. Was that relationship on the way out, or could it still be salvaged?

Max and Michael met each other's gaze, and Michael turned away sharply, a saw Isabel. She offered him a hesitant smile, but he ran his eyes over the people she was sitting with, and simply raised an eyebrow before turning away.

Isabel bit her lip worriedly. It was the first time, she realized with a jolt, that she, Michael, and Max had all eaten lunch separately. Sometimes it was only two who ate together and the third was off doing something with someone else, but this was all three of them.

"Isabel?"

The tall alien started and turned her attention back to the conversation at hand. It was Jessica who had spoken, and Isabel glanced at her and flushed. "Sorry, my mind was elsewhere for a moment. What did you say?"

"I asked if you had fun shopping yesterday," Jessica replied.

"Oh, yes, I did," Isabel answered, slightly startled by the question.

"Didn't we all," Tess muttered under her breath, and sent a glare at Pam. Pam serenely ignored her, and continued eating her lunch.

"That's good," Jessica replied. "Trudy was telling me all about it…" She let the sentence hang in the air and sent her own angry look at Pam.

"Did anyone pay attention in history?" Kyle asked quickly, changing the subject.

"No," Tess snapped irritably. "No one paid attention. We were all asleep."

Kyle held his hands up in defense. "I was just asking an innocent question," he said simply.

"Actually, you were just trying to divert the conversation from potentially awkward material," Pam countered sweetly.

"You mean like you being a…" Sara started.

"Sara!" Tess hissed, cutting off her friend. Sara gave her a look, then shrugged. "Fine, whatever," she said icily.

"No, finish what you were going to say," Pam challenged. "What was I being?"

"Guys, can we please…" This time it was Trudy trying to change the subject, but it didn't work because Sara was already talking.

"Nobody here actually likes you, Pam," Sara spat. "Can't you see that?"

"Kyle likes me," Pam shot back.

"No, actually, he doesn't," Tess interjected, her face flushed red with anger as her temper boiled over. She was too stressed to deal with Pam right now. "And you have a lot of nerve showing up here after yesterday."

"Oh, really?" Pam raised an eyebrow. "I don't remember saying anything that wasn't true."

Trudy chewed her bottom lip nervously and looked away, averting her attention as best she could.

"Oh, well, that makes it all better," Tess laughed bitterly. "If it's true, then it must be fair game to throw in people's faces."

"And let me guess, you think I'm evil," Pam countered, rolling her eyes. "Because you're such a perfect saint." Her voice was dripping with sarcasm. She narrowed her eyes. "There are a lot of people who think exactly the same thing of you that you think of me." She turned and looked around the quad for a moment, before her eyes settled on Liz and Maria, who were talking quietly at a far table. "Like, say, Liz Parker."

"Yeah, but who cares what Liz thinks?" Sara muttered under her breath.

"And who cares what Trudy thinks?" Pam retorted.

"I do," Tess shot back venomously.

"Oh, well, then we'd all better be nice to her," Pam mocked. "Tess has spoken. Let it go down in law, we all must be nice to Trudy." She shook her head. "God, you are such a hypocrite."

"Oh?" Tess responded challengingly.

"Tess, the main reason you are mad at me is because I came between Kyle and Trudy. Yet you had absolutely no qualms about insulting Liz every time you got a chance and constantly trying to get Kyle to break up with her. Don't her feelings mean anything to you?"

"I accepted the fact that my brother was allowed to chose who he wanted to date, even if he had really bad taste in girls," Tess retorted. "I never actively tried to break them up." Even as she said it, she knew it wasn't true. She had spread the rumors that Liz was cheating on Kyle with Max, but, she consoled herself, that had been to protect them all from Jim's investigations. And anyway, Liz and Kyle were pretty much over at that point.

"And that makes you the good guy?" Pam asked defiantly.

"It makes me better than you," Tess snapped back.

"Right…" Pam sneered. She ran a hand through her hair and smirked slightly. "Keep telling yourself that, Tess. Maybe someday soon everyone else will believe it as well."

"Everyone else _does_ believe it," Tess hissed.

"Or they just give you excuses because of your… _past_."

A dead silence fell over the table. All eyes were fixed on Tess, and even Isabel knew that things were about to get ugly. Tess and Pam stared solely at each other, oblivious to their audience.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Tess asked in a deathly quiet voice.

"Poor little Tess, the girl with the dead parents," Pam drawled. "She has to be cold and mean to everyone because she's got abandonment issues."

"That was a long time ago," Chris said, his eyes flickering from Tess to Pam and then back to Tess again. "People don't think that anymore."

"Of course they do," Pam disagreed. "All the adults see the way you act and they just wave it off because you have problems. Dead parents, and a new adopted father who's never around because his work is so important."

"Pam…" Kyle said warningly.

Tess tilted her chin up and stared at Pam with an unreadable gaze. Her face had gone pure white, and her lips were slightly parted. Her hands were balled into tight fists, her knuckles were white. When she spoke, her voice was shaking with barely contained anger.

"The Hardings died _years_ ago," she said softly.

Pam shrugged. "I know," she replied. "Everyone knows that. But it doesn't make a difference. It's still what all the adults in your life think about the minute they see you. It doesn't go away." She gave Tess a scrutinizing gaze. "And it doesn't go away for you either. It still affects the way you act. It's still the reason you are so callous. And what's worse, you think it's an excuse to act the way you do. You had all this trauma in your childhood, and therefore you get to hurt everyone else."

Jessica stood up and grabbed Pam by the arm, dragging her away from the table. "Leave," she ordered tersely.

Pam gave Tess one last smirk, then replied, "Gladly," and spun around, stalking away.

Kyle stood up abruptly and followed Pam across the grounds and into the school.

There was a moment of dead silence, then Tess threw her lunch back into its brown paper bag and stood up. She gave the retreating backs of Kyle and Pam one last look, then walked away, leaving a deafening silence behind her.

* * *

"How could you say that to Tess?"

Pam slammed the locker shut and turned around to face a seething Kyle. She had never seen the football jock as angry as he was then, and she wondered vaguely if he would have gotten this upset if someone had insulted her.

Oh, wait, Tess had insulted her, and Kyle clearly didn't care.

That answers that question.

"Did it ever occur to you that Tess brought in on herself?" Pam asked bitingly. "She certainly wasn't going out of her way to be nice to me."

"Maybe she wasn't being nice, but what you said was out of line," Kyle retorted viciously.

"And once again, poor little Tessie gets all the excuses," Pam mocked, rolling her eyes. Snapping at Kyle was clearly not the way to keep her relationship with him, but at this point she was too frazzled by the events of the day to actually care. It wasn't as though she harbored any romantic feelings for Kyle. Sure, he was one of the most popular guys in the school, but he was also just a means to and end. He was a way to cause trouble and annoy both Tess and Trudy, and that was all Pam had really had in mind when she accepted his first date.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kyle demanded.

Pam shoved her books into her backpack and explained acrimoniously, "Exactly what it sounds like, Kyle. Everyone always excuses Tess like somehow it's okay that she acts the way she does."

"And that gives you the right to throw Andrew and Jessica in her face?" Kyle spat. "She _lost_ her parents, Pam!"

"Tragic, really…" Pam drawled. "But nothing I said wasn't true."

"That doesn't make it any better," Kyle hissed.

Pam rolled her eyes sarcastically and gave a thin-lipped smile. "And the fact that she has abandonment issues or whatever doesn't make her actions any better either," she replied, her tone acidic.

"Why did I ever ask you out on a date?" Kyle wondered, shaking his head at her callousness.

"Because you were trying to make Trudy jealous," Pam supplied helpfully with a sardonic smile. "Your _darling_ sister is so quick to point out that I was just using you, but one could argue that you were just using me also. After all, it was _you_ that asked _me_ out, not the other way around."

"We're over, Pam," Kyle said firmly. "We're over, and I want you to stay away from me and stay away from Tess."

Pam just laughed. "God, Kyle, you are such an idiot sometimes." She gave him an icy smile. "Of course we're over. And you can protect Tess all you want, but sooner or later she's going to cross a line, and she'll finally get what's coming to her. And even you won't be able to defend her then."

"Is that a threat?" Kyle asked, surprised.

"No, that's just a simple fact," Pam replied.

"You have no idea what she had to go through," Kyle defended Tess.

"And she has no idea what I've dealt with," Pam retorted. "But somehow I'm the devil and she's the misunderstood saint."

"What was the problem in your family? Were your parents too nice to you? Did they give you too much of everything? Do you all have too much money?" Kyle asked sarcastically.

"Don't talk to me about money," Pam spat bitterly.

"Why? What's it to you?" Kyle asked, suddenly confused.

Pam was silent for a moment, staring at the floor. "My father never wanted children," she said suddenly. "My mom did, but he… he didn't think he had time for anything as pointless as a child. And then I was born."

"Spare me your sob story," Kyle said, bored. "At least you still have both your parents."

"Yeah, it's great to have a father who actually tells you that he doesn't want you," Pam replied ironically. Kyle gave her a questioning look, and she elaborated "It was in response to me questioning him about why he never came to my dance recitals or school plays, why he missed my birthday parties, why he never read me bedtimes stories and tucked me in at night."

"Heartbreaking," Kyle remarked unemotionally.

"But he didn't want people to think he was a bad father. He… he tries to express affection the only way he really knows how. With money. He thought a ridiculously high allowance was a substitute for actual caring. He gave me money, but he never came to anything I did." She felt a burning sensation grow behind her eyes and blinked rapidly to keep the tears away. She hated talking about this, it made her feel weak and vulnerable. "Even parent-teacher conferences, my mom went to alone. Always."

Kyle stared at Pam, wondering where the conversation was going. He was still furious with her for what she had said to Tess, but he was also starting to feel the tiniest bit of pity. After all, he didn't know anything about her family, and maybe her father wasn't a great father.

"But for all his faults, my father isn't that bad." Pam laughed slightly, her tone suddenly acidic. "He isn't a great father. He should have been, he has everything people expect in a great father. He is kind, he loves my mother so much, he is charismatic, he laughs a lot, he… God, to the world he's just so damn _perfect_. But he just doesn't want me."

"And you can still defend him? You can still say he isn't a bad father?" Kyle demanded before he could stop himself.

Pam gave the barest hint of a smile. "He's not a great father. He's not even a good one. But bad fathers…? There are bad fathers in the world. Abusive, neglectful, the way they treat their children… malnutrition, abandonment, insults, disrespect, constant belittling, beatings… my father was not a _bad_ father." She rolled her eyes. "I can't…_believe_… I'm defending him."

"Then why are you?" Kyle asked curiously.

"Because you got to have some perspective, don't you?" Pam replied with another tiny smile. Then she sobered. "Do you remember what Tess was like for those few weeks at the beginning of middle school when she started becoming popular?" she asked suddenly.

"Um…" Honestly, Kyle didn't. Middle school was before he was interested in girls, before he started paying much attention to them.

Pam, on the other hand, remembered quite clearly.

It was the first few weeks of middle school, when popularity started to matter. When girls showed their true colors and somehow morphed into the back-stabbing preteens seen in most American middle schools. The boys were changing also, they'd start fights sometimes, or mock other guys. But it was always open and obvious. Guys rarely resorted to the same underhanded and secretive measures that girls did.

Groups quickly formed, and Tess was firmly entrenched in the popular group.

Popularity was a strange thing. How do you know what it takes to be popular? How do you become popular? It isn't as thought there is this set guideline or rule book, and yet somehow everyone accepts the system of popularity as though it is written down in stone.

"Tess was… bitchy. I mean, she's still like that now, but in middle school, it was worse. But the thing is… no one was really surprised. Especially not the teachers. They'd always say the same thing, over and over and over. Well, Tessie just has security issues because of her _situation_." She shook her head in disgust. Kyle raised an eyebrow, and Pam hurried to say, "And yes, it was horrible. I'm not saying that Tess doesn't have a right to be upset or anything. They were her parents, and they died. The thing is, in some ways, Tess is luckier than me." She sighed and looked away. "At least she knows why the Hardings aren't coming to any of the major events in her life. Dance recitals, school plays, whatever…"

"Would you prefer that your father was dead?" Kyle asked stonily.

"No," Pam replied, shaking her head. "I just… I just wish I knew _why_ he didn't want me."

"It's not your fault," Kyle said softly, attempting to be kind and consoling to a girl he knew all his friends absolutely hated.

Pam shrugged. "I guess not," she conceded. "But that doesn't really help." She licked her dry lips. "If you can't keep his grades up, that's forgiven because your mother abandoned you and your dad is never really home. If Michael Guerin screws up, it's okay because he can blame it on having to live with Hank for so long. If Tess is bitchy, it's okay because she still has insecurity issues or whatever. If Maria DeLuca skips class, that's fine because her mother's in the hospital and her deadbeat dad is back. But me…? I do something wrong, and I don't get excuses. Because even though my father has told me that he never wanted me, even though he never bothers to be a part of my life, even though it is fairly obvious I am nothing more than a nuisance to him… everyone still tells me to count my blessings because he isn't a _bad_ father." She placed sarcastic emphasis on the word 'bad.'

There was an awkward silence during which Pam stared at her hands and Kyle averted his eyes towards the ceiling. Finally, Pam sighed and slanted a look at Kyle. "All I'm saying is that everyone has a story, everyone has problems. Even if you can't see it, even if you don't realize these problems are there… Everyone has something they're trying to figure out or fix. And the people who appear to have perfect lives are just a hell of a lot better at pretending than the rest of us."

She brushed past Kyle and disappeared down the hallway, and after a moment, Kyle walked away as well. Neither noticed Michael, standing in the shadows by a corner of the hallway, listening to their conversation with a thoughtful expression on his face.

* * *

"Good morning, Ms. DeLuca."

Amy looked up in surprise at the sound of the voice, and discovered that Alex was standing near the door to her room, holding a bouquet of roses in one hand and a vase in the other.

"Good morning, Alex," Amy replied with a wide smile. "Come on in." She pushed herself up into a sitting position and gestured for Alex to take a seat in one of the chairs next to her. "How have you been?"

"I've been alright," Alex replied. He slid into one of the chairs and arranged the roses in the vase. "How are you feeling?"

"As well as can be expected, given the circumstances," Amy replied. She watched as Alex finished arranging the flowers and placed them on the table next to Amy's bed. "Those are beautiful roses, Alex. Thank you." She gave him a smile, touched by his thoughtfulness.

Alex blushed. "No problem," he replied, squirming slightly. There was an awkward pause, then he said, "So… what's the hospital like? I've never been in one for any extended period of time."

"It's alright," Amy replied casually. "Although they switched doctors on me today. Apparently mine left over the weekend. Skipped town."

"Oh." Alex was silent, not really knowing what to say.

"Have you seen Maria lately?" Amy asked in what was clearly an attempt at a nonchalant voice.

"Some…" Alex ran a hand through his hair. "She hangs out with Liz a lot now. I think… I think she's more comfortable talking to Liz about everything because Liz is a girl." He wished vaguely that Maria would talk to him as well, but he understood that she was dealing with a lot and it was going to take her a while to be able to talk to him about it.

"Do you have any idea of how she's doing?" Amy asked. Alex gave her a funny look, and she shrugged. "Well, when she's here, she tries to put on a brave face. So it's hard for me to tell how she's really holding up. I'm worried about her, you know."

"She's having trouble," Alex replied honestly, "but she's got Liz and I." He hesitated, then added as an afterthought, "And Michael."

"Michael?"

"Michael Guerin," Alex replied. "He and Maria are…" He hesitated, frowning. He had seen Michael kiss Maria at Homecoming, and then Maria and Michael had been together at the hospital after the incident with Hank, but he wasn't really sure if they had entered a formal relationship yet.

Amy thought about Alex's words for a moment. The name Michael Guerin rang a bell, but she couldn't quite place it. At last, she asked, "He's that foster kid, right? The one who was always getting in trouble?"

Alex raised an eyebrow, puzzled. "He's the guy who pulled you out of the car before it exploded," he replied.

Amy stared at Alex in total surprise. In everything that had happened, she had never once thought to ask how she had managed to safely get out of her burning automobile. "Is he? He hasn't come by the hospital, has he? I mean, I haven't seen him since I woke up?"

"No," Alex answered. "Well… he's been here a lot, but mostly he hangs out in the hallway with Maria to make sure she's okay."

Amy smiled slightly at that and wondered if Maria and this Michael were together. She knew her daughter had gone to Homecoming with Alex, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. But she decided against asking Alex, and instead murmured, "I'm glad she has so many people who care about her."

Alex nodded in agreement, then thought back to Amy's previous statement about Dr. Drake skipping town. Drake did not seem like the type of person who would do that, and Alex was now too suspicious of everything to accept anything at face value. He'd have to ask one of the aliens or Liz, perhaps they knew what was going on.

* * *

"I need to talk to you," Michael said, walking into the backroom and startling Maria. Her shift had ended just a few moments ago, and she was carefully removing the silver antennas from her hair. She jumped slightly, and turned to stare at Michael in surprise.

"I'm about to leave…" she started, but Michael cut her off.

"I complicate things. I'm not human and I've got my own issues and I'm having weird dreams about Isabel that I don't want and understand," Michael said bluntly. "I complicate things, and you don't want complicated. I get that."

"Michael…"

"No, wait, let me finish," Michael interrupted her, holding up a hand to forestall her comment. "You have Sean and your mother to worry about, and I have emancipation and an entirely new life to worry about. Things are too complicated for both of us at the moment, and us being together would just be stupid."

Maria flinched at the harshness of his comment.

"I'm dangerous. Things happen around me," Michael pointed out. "Bad people follow me. Other people get hurt. I'm not safe at all. Us being together would be reckless."

"And this is why we need to not be together," Maria agreed with a nod, the breath catching in her throat as she said the words. She had already reached this conclusion, but it still hurt to have him agree with her.

"You're insane," Michael continued as though she had not spoken. "You go with the flow. You don't care what people think. You… you say things like Spaceboy and Czechoslovakian and you compare yourself to Charlie's Angels. You're annoy the hell out of me, and half the time I talk to you, you don't make sense."

"That's not true!" Maria protested, but then realized that, in retrospect, it probably was true.

"I don't know why I am dreaming about Isabel, and it scares me. I don't know how to live on my own, and that worries me. I don't know how to be an adult, and that bothers me." Michael paused and took a breath, thinking about everything that had happened. He had walked away from Max and refused to ever speak to him again. He had gotten into an argument with Isabel. He had ostracized himself from his friends at a point when he probably needed them. "I've done some not that smart things lately…" he said slowly.

"We all have," Maria said, attempting to comfort him.

"Telling you that our kiss at Homecoming meant nothing… that was one of the stupid things," Michael said slowly.

Maria took a sharp breath and slowly exhaled, staring at Michael in hesitation.

"I said it because I'm too dangerous to be around," Michael stated, letting out a shaky breath. "And because I complicate things, and I know that you can't deal with more complicated stuff right now." He stared at Maria, and realized that they were standing close enough for him to feel her breath. "And I stand by what I thought before, that I am dangerous and I am complicated. But that kiss… it didn't mean nothing."

Maria swallowed slowly, not quite understanding. From everything he said, she had gathered that he didn't want to be dreaming about Isabel, and that he was attracted to her. But she wasn't sure what else he was saying. Did he want to be with her? Did he want to date? Or was he just trying get all this off his chest.

"Everything is changing, and I've never… Hank was not a good father, but he was still the only father I'd ever had. I don't know… I don't know how to do this… I don't know how to be alone, and… I was always the reckless one. The screw up. The kid who started fights and skipped classes. And now I have to be an adult. I have to be responsible. I was used to everyone expecting the lowest standards from me, and now…The Evans, they care about me… they care and… Hank never did… and I don't know… how to…" Michael broke off abruptly and looked away. Finally, he said simply, "I don't want to be the screw up anymore."

Maria reached up and placed her palm on the side of his face. "Shh," she whispered. "It's okay."

"The kiss meant a lot," Michael murmured. "I just… I thought you should know that."

The door behind them swung open, and both Maria and Michael turned in frustration to see Max standing there. Max, seeming to realize that he was interrupting something, said apologetically, "We were going to have a meeting by the cliffs this evening around eight o'clock. Can you guys make it?"

"For all of us?" Maria asked. They hadn't had meetings that included the entire group since her mother was first hospitalized.

"Yes," Max said. "It's… some things have happened, and we need to talk about it." He glanced over at Michael. "And we need to talk about that file on Atherton."

"I'm free," Maria agreed quickly, hoping that Max would leave.

"Me, too," Michael said, and Max nodded.

"Alright, well… I'll see you guys… later." Max left, closing the door sharply behind him.

Michael glanced back at Maria, but the moment was gone now, and the two of them stood awkwardly in the small room, watching each other's faces and waiting for someone to say something.

Finally, Maria sighed, "I don't want complicated."

"Neither do I," Michael agreed readily. He stepped closer to Maria. "I have too much going on as it is."

Maria tilted her head and looked up at him. "And you're dangerous. I don't like danger."

"And you would be a distraction," Michael pointed out. "That would put me in danger."

"So, we should take a break from each other," Maria concluded logically.

"Yeah," Michael agreed slowly, unemotionally. "A break."

They stood in the back room, staring at each other, and then Maria reached up and kissed Michael firmly on the lips. Slowly, Michael's hands wound around Maria's back, pulling her towards him. Maria pressed her hands against Michael's shoulders and broke the kiss. She leaned against his chest, and Michael pulled her into the embrace more tightly.

They both knew they should be taking a break. It was the rational, sane thing to do. They both had too much to deal with as it was, and a relationship would only complicate everything. Therefore, the logical thing to do was to take a break.

But in that moment, logic didn't seem to matter.

* * *

Next Chapter: Atherton Revisited

Due: 12/3


	55. Atherton Revisited

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: If you are like me, and your memory is not incredibly perfect, you probably don't remember many details from the earlier chapters. I have a hard time remembering the details, and I'm the one writing the chapters. So a lot of this chapter serves as a reminder of everything that has happened between the trip to Marathon and now. If there is anything that doesn't seem familiar or that you don't understand, leave a review and I'll try to explain it to you in my reply.

Also, I am fully aware that nothing happens in this chapter. And I apologize. Basically, this chapter is to get us all caught up and on the same page so that I can start the next part of the plot. In which I promise many things will happen.

* * *

Chapter Fifty-Four: Atherton Revisited

Michael slumped onto the nearest rock and crossed his arms over his chest as he surveyed the surroundings. Max was standing nearest to the tall rocky cliff, talking to Isabel in a hushed voice. Liz was purposefully ignoring Max, her eyes trained on Alex, who was idly kicking at the small pebbles that were scattered across the ground. Maria was standing next to Michael, her fingers carelessly brushing against his hand. Tess was eyeing Max and Isabel, her expression wary.

Finally, Max turned to the others. "So, I think we need a quick recap on everything that has happened in the past few days because…" He trailed off for a moment, his eyes darting to Tess. Tess raised an eyebrow at him, but said nothing.

"Because why?" Michael asked suspiciously, watching the exchange between the two aliens. He knew the look in Max's eyes, and he wondered why the other alien would be feeling that guilty.

"A few things happened that we didn't tell anyone else yet," Max remarked, trying to keep his voice causal. He ran hand through his hair and took a shaky breath, his eyes still fixed on Tess.

"Like what?" Liz asked sharply, eyes narrowing. She took a seat next to where Alex was standing, and he rested a hand on her shoulder, giving her a reassuring squeeze.

"We should start at the beginning," Isabel interjected, allowing Max to backtrack and delay the inevitable anger that would arise if he had been keeping anything too important a secret. Although she too looked interested in whatever it this information of Max's was.

"What's the beginning?" Alex asked, turning his gaze to Max.

"I'm the beginning," Michael ground out, averting his gaze from everyone else. He really did not want this to be another discussion about how screwed up his life was, he had had enough of those as it was.

"No," Max countered, shaking his head, "Hank is the beginning." Well, that wasn't quite true either, but none of them really knew where the beginning was.

"We all know what happened with Hank," Liz pointed out, although she couldn't keep the annoyance out of her voice. _They_ all knew that had happened with Hank, but _she_ was the one who had been left out in the dark for that entire night.

Michael glanced over at Liz, somewhat surprised that she had so nonchalantly dismissed the incident with Hank. He opened his mouth to say something, but Maria cut him off.

"Michael and I broke into Ms. Topolski's apartment," the blonde remarked. "After you guys switched Michael and Alex's blood… and after Michael had woken up. We found some… interesting things…" Like the fact that Ms. Topolski had orchestrated the entire conflict with Hank and that she thought that Liz might be 'changing.' But Maria didn't say either of those out loud.

Alex looked like he was about to inquire as to what they had learned, but Tess spoke up quickly, her eyes on Max, "Actually, something happened before that." She held Max's gaze for a beat, then turned to the rest of the group. "While we were in the hospital, I sensed another presence… an alien."

"The shape-shifter?" Isabel demanded instantly, memories of her encounter with him rising in her mind. She shivered slightly despite the warm heat and sat down on the ground next to Max's feet. Her brother remained standing, and began to pace.

"Maybe," Max conceded with a nod. "We don't really know. Although I think it is safe to assume that it was the shape-shifter, because how likely is it that two aliens are in town?" He didn't want an answer to that question. He didn't want to consider the possibility that there were two aliens in town. They had enough trouble at the moment with just one.

"What happened?" Alex asked, glancing from Max to Tess as he settled onto one of the rocks. He had to tilt his head up to see Max and Tess, both of whom had remained standing. Squinting at Tess, he asked again, "What happened?" He had not been informed about this piece of information, and from the shocked looks on the faces of the others in the group, he assumed that only Tess and Max knew.

"I completed the mind-warp and Max switched the blood," Tess replied simply. She stopped there, but Max gave her a pointed look, indicating that she should continue the story. "Max left the building and I…" She hesitated, drawing a breath and opting to sit down. She chose one of the higher rocks so that she was still sitting above the others save for the still standing Max and Maria. "I went to find this other alien."

As expected, Isabel burst out in surprise and anger, "What were you thinking? You could have gotten killed!"

And Michael gave a sudden ironic grin and said, "Apparently I'm not the only one who acts without thinking around here."

Tess glanced over at him, and considered explaining that she had thought about it before hand, and decided to try to find this mysterious alien anyway. But she shook the thought away when she remembered how that conversation had gone with Max.

"It doesn't sound like the safest idea," Liz agreed diffidently. Tess quelled her with one icy look.

"You could have gotten killed," Isabel repeated.

"_I_ didn't get killed," Tess replied with a casual shrug of her shoulders. Isabel looked like she was about to argue further, but then stopped, realizing she was going to get nowhere with Tess on this particular subject. Michael shook his head, and Maria raised her eyebrows at Tess careless dismissal of the danger she had been in.

But Alex heard the emphasis in Tess' word and gave the petite alien a shrewd stare. "_You_ didn't die…" Tess turned to look at him and he asked bluntly, "Who did?"

Tess glanced over at Maria. "Your mother's doctor," she said.

"He didn't die, he left," Michael objected instantly. "I overheard the nurses talking about it… He walked out on his wife, just disappeared." He gave Maria an apologetic look, realizing he should have said something to her about this earlier. But she just gave a slight smile to show that she didn't mind.

Liz watched the entire exchange suspiciously.

Tess seemed slightly startled by Michael's comment, but after a moment of thinking, she shook her head. "Someone might have made it look like he left town," she replied, "but he was dead. I saw him… silver handprint and all."

Isabel shivered at the statement. Silver handprints gave her the creeps.

"Who made up the story then?" Liz asked curiously. She glanced over at Max and added, "And why didn't you tell us this before?" Her voice was tinged with an accusation and Max stared at her for a moment, unresponsive.

"You know, Max, I'm kind of wondering that myself," Isabel commented dryly.

"Because Hank could have died, Michael was still in the hospital, and we had just found out that Ms. Topolski was FBI," Tess snapped, giving both Isabel and Liz annoyed glares. "We had a few other things on our minds."

"Still, you could have mentioned it…" Again Tess silenced Liz with a stare, but although Liz stopped speaking, she continued to glare at Tess and Max.

"Do you think Ms. Topolski being FBI and Drake being dead are somehow related?" Maria suggested, interrupting the conversation and distracting Tess and Liz from their silent argument.

"Drake was killed by an alien," Tess replied with a shrug. "Ms. Topolski couldn't have been involved with that."

"Actually, Maria's got a point…" Alex said thoughtfully, and Maria gave him a smile. Michael stiffened for a moment at that, but an annoyed look from Maria caused him to relax again, and give her a sheepish half-smile.

Liz raised an eyebrow at Michael, but he refused to answer her unspoken question.

"We had just found out that Ms. Topolski was FBI because Maria overheard her telling Valenti that," Alex continued, oblivious to what was going on with Michael, Maria, and Liz.

"So?" Isabel asked in confusion.

"Well, if Ms. Topolski hadn't told Valenti before, then she must not have wanted him to know. Why would she tell him now?" Alex reasoned logically.

Liz caught on and replied, "Because she didn't have a choice. Valenti knew something, and she had to stop him from talking…"

"You think that Valenti knew that Drake was dead and just let the FBI lie about it?" Maria asked, scandalized. She knew that none of the aliens thought that highly of the FBI, but she was still shocked that they would do something like that.

"Maybe Ms. Topolski offered him something in return," Max said, shooting a look at Tess. "Like answers to his questions." Tess nodded slowly, thinking about the suggestion, and Max gave her a sympathetic look.

Liz watched _that_ exchange and glared at them both.

"I don't understand," Alex asked, directing the question to Tess. "What are you talking about?" He could tell from the smirk on Max's face that the alien had seen the jealous expression in Liz's eyes, and tried to steer the attention away from Liz.

"Jim broke out of my mind-warp," Tess said with a sigh. Alex and Maria both gave her blank stares, and Tess elaborated, "Something had to have happened to make him break out of it."

"You think he's working with Ms. Topolski?" Maria asked.

"It's possible," Tess replied noncommittally. "I don't know anything for sure." She didn't want to think that he would do that, but it was the most logical answer. Which meant he was becoming more of a threat and more of an enemy.

"We took care of Hank, we can take care of this," Isabel said decisively.

"How?" Max countered. "We don't know what we're up against, we don't know how much Ms. Topolski knows. We could mind-warp both of them, but Tess says that runs the risk of killing them, and I'd like to not do that."

"Besides," Maria added, "it wouldn't be enough. It's not just Ms. Topolski, it's the whole FBI."

"Pierce," Michael said slowly, nodding at Maria.

"Who's Pierce?" Tess asked sharply, twisting to look at Michael.

"We don't know," Michael explained. "We found a phone number in Ms. Topolski's apartment. When we called it, an Agent Pierce answered."

A silence met those words.

"Tess, what can you do about Valenti?" Max asked finally, turning to Tess after he had digested Michael and Maria's contribution.

Tess shrugged. "Not much," she admitted. "I can't risk mind-warping him again. The most I can do is keep an eye on whatever he's doing, try to direct him away from the truth. It won't be easy though, not if he's working with the FBI. He'll start asking too many questions."

"Can't you just lie to him? Or, at least, not tell him the truth?" Liz asked coldly. "You're good at that."

"Unfortunately, it isn't quite that simple," Tess replied with a sickly sweet smile. "Although, _you_ probably can't comprehend how complex this situation is…"

There was a pause while everyone waited for Max to intervene and say something to Tess, or reassure Liz. But Max refused to look at Liz and said instead, "It is dangerous. The FBI knows too much. Especially since Ms. Topolski suspects that you are somehow involved."

"Max…" Maria hissed, jerking her head towards Liz, who looked upset and a little surprised.

Max didn't even bother responding. "So, onto our next item of business," he announced, changing the subject. "The file Michael found on Atherton."

"What exactly do we know about Atherton?" Alex asked.

"He was a conspiracy theorist," Max replied. "He believed in aliens." He was quiet for a moment, thinking, trying to organize his thoughts. "He used a symbol of four circles connected by an x to claim that aliens existed."

"That symbol means something," Michael said instantly. "We know that."

"He died while he was working on the manuscript of a book that was never found," Liz added helpfully. "It had something to do with that symbol."

"And it was the same symbol that showed up on the wall that the orb was behind?" Alex asked.

"What exactly did you see in your vision?" Isabel questioned Tess.

Tess closed her eyes, remembering the vision she had received while standing in front of the symbol on the wall in Atherton's basement. "Someone… nonhumans… covering that symbol. They were afraid of it… I think they might have been afraid of us. They… they weren't allies…"

"I knew before we walked in that people… nonhumans… had been there before us," Michael said swiftly. "I got a bad feeling from it."

"But it was a different bad feeling from the one you got from the button in Deputy Hannigan's car," Maria pointed out, recalling that particular conversation with Michael. "You said that was a more human danger… that it was something that had happened to the shape-shifter."

"White room," Isabel murmured. She shivered as she too remembered that vision. Michael gave her a confused look, and she elaborated, "I saw the vision in your mind when I was dream-walking you to try to discover what had happened between you and Hank."

"So we have two different types of dangers, one human and one alien," Max summed up, directing the conversation back to Atherton. "We know little about the human danger, but we know that Atherton was on to something. This symbol is important."

"If the aliens were trying to hide it, why didn't they just erase it?" Alex asked.

"I don't think they could," Tess after a moment of contemplation. She glanced at Max. "You felt it when Michael smudged the symbol, right?"

"Yes… But why me? Why not all of us?" Max asked, repeating a question that had plagued all of them when they first discovered the connection.

Tess shrugged. "I don't know," she admitted. "But I don't think the people who hid it wanted you to know that it was there. They took pains to preserve it, to make sure it would not only stay hidden, but it also wouldn't change."

"We still don't know what the substance was… the one that they symbols was drawn in…" Michael muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "It wasn't ink… or charcoal…"

"I think it was something alien," Max said. "That's the only explanation for why I could feel it…"

"But it still doesn't explain why it was there in the first place," Isabel sighed, rubbing her temples. "I'm getting a headache," she moaned.

"It has to be connected to the orb," Tess argued. "There's no other explanation for it."

"But we don't know what the orb is or how it got there," Isabel pointed out dryly.

"But I feel like I should," Max murmured, rubbing his eyes wearily.

"Basically, we have a lot of unanswered questions," Maria said. She leaned forward, sitting down next to Michael on the rock. He glanced at her with the barest hint of a smile, but said nothing. Liz gave them both a sharp look before sending Maria a small smirk. Maria glared back, but knew inwardly that as soon as they left the meeting, Liz was going to demand all the details of what had happened between her and Michael.

And Maria knew as soon as this meeting was over, she was going to demand from Liz all the details of what had happened with Max.

"The only good thing about any of this is that the FBI doesn't know much either," Max was saying. He was holding Ms. Topolski's files on Atherton. "I read through this, and they know less than we know."

"Which means the entire conspiracy to cover up whatever Atherton knew was done by aliens. Aliens who we are fairly certain are our enemies… Wow, you're right, that makes me feel quite reassured," Michael deadpanned, and Maria stifled a laugh.

Max glowered at Michael, but continued, "So that's basically everything we know."

"Or, more like everything we don't know," Isabel grumbled.

"Well, if this concludes the meeting…" Tess said, standing up and preparing to leave.

"Actually…" Isabel glanced over at Michael and frowned, unsure. "There is one other thing that I think might be relevant." Michael raised an eyebrow at her, and realized she was asking for permission to discuss their dreams with the others. He gave a tiny nod, surprised that she would even want to discuss them in the first place.

"What?" Max asked curiously.

Isabel swallowed and said, "Michael and I have been having dreams… Of each other… In a…um… romantic sense."

"You know, that wasn't something I needed to know," Tess pointed out dryly, glancing from Isabel to Michael. "What you guys do on your own time is your business…"

"I think it's alien related," Isabel interrupted Tess with an exasperated shake of her head. "I don't know why or how, but… I think it's alien related." Michael nodded emphatically, backing up her assertion.

"Liz, when you and Max… um… kissed," Michael asked awkwardly, "did you see any… flashes of Isabel and I? Like the one you saw of Max and Tess?"

Liz shook her head. "No," she said, inwardly thinking how relieved she was. It was bad enough that she had to think about Max and Tess being in love, she didn't want to have to think about Michael and Isabel being in love as well. It would have been devastating for Maria, not to mention that it was something she just didn't even want to think about.

"That doesn't mean you weren't together in a past life," Tess said thoughtfully. "Liz might not have seen it because she was kissing you. Maybe it's only Max's past she can see when they… kiss."

Max was staring at Liz, uncomfortable with the conversation. Because it was a reminder of the fact that they had kissed at one point, and that they weren't doing it now. In fact, Liz was barely speaking to him now.

He knew that she thought it was his fault. And part of it was his fault. But when he had tried to speak to her today at lunch, she had refused to listen to him. She wasn't even willing to compromise on this. Couldn't she understand how much stress he was under?

"So maybe Michael and Liz should start kissing? Or maybe Michael and Isabel?" Tess continued with a wicked smirk. Maria turned deathly white at the suggestion, and both Isabel and Liz looked appalled at the idea. Michael, however, laughed.

"Thanks, but I think I'll pass on the offer," he said, shaking his head. "I'm not actually that desperate to solve these dreams."

Maria gave a relieved sigh and linked her fingers into his, but then quickly withdrew them when she caught sight of Liz smirking at her. She glared back.

"Well, how about this," Max suggested finally, "Michael and Isabel pay attention to their dreams, see if they learn anything from them. They might give us an insight into our past lives. And if they don't, we can never talk about it again."

"I like that idea," Isabel agreed, smiling slightly.

There was a silence. "So… now are we done?" Tess asked.

Max nodded. "I think so."

"But we have no plan for what to do now," Liz objected.

"Can you think of one?" Tess asked haughtily. "I mean, if you know how to stop enemies that are, for all intents and purposes, completely unknown to us… well, I'm all ears."

Liz colored at Tess' mocking tone and shook her head. She slanted a look at Max, but he refused to meet her gaze, and said nothing to rebuke Tess' harsh words.

"So basically we're just going to keep our eyes open?" Michael snapped, somewhat annoyed. "Why does this always seem to be the plan?"

"Because it keeps us from dying," Max shot back.

"I'm going to go now," Tess interjected, temporarily halting the argument. She glanced at Isabel. "I'm heading over to Sara's, we might watch a movie. Do you want to come?"

Isabel stared at Tess, still slightly unable to comprehend the fact that Tess was being nice to her. That Tess was willing including her in activities. It was not a Tess she remembered how to interact with.

"Um… okay," Isabel agreed, standing up. She ran a hand over her shirt, straightening out the wrinkles, then she and Tess left, walking down the sloping desert ground towards Tess' car.

Michael glanced at Maria. "I need to talk to Max for a moment," he said under his breath as he stood slowly and stretched.

Maria gave him a piercing look. "Okay," she agreed, standing up. "I'll see you later then."

"Give me a ride?" Liz asked, sending Maria a smile. Maria groaned inwardly, but nodded, and as the two of them walked away, Liz murmured under her breath, "So… you and Michael? I want details."

Alex frowned as he listened to Liz's words. Michael and Maria? When had that happened? And how did Liz know? And why didn't he know?

Or was that only something you talked to your girl friends about?

"See you guys later," Alex said to Max and Michael, then took off after his two best friends, intent on eavesdropping on as much of the conversation as possible.

And that left Michael and Max standing by themselves.

There was an awkward silence, then Michael said, "You're a jerk."

Max opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it, and remained silent.

"You're an arrogant jerk. And you're controlling. And you're incredibly stupid since you're screwing everything up with Liz," Michael continued. "And I'm still mad at you."

"Okay," Max said, accepting Michael's words.

Michael stared at Max for a moment, then nodded. "Okay," he agreed. There was another silence, then Michael said abruptly, "You have a car."

"I do," Max agreed, not really sure where the conversation was going.

"I need to look for apartments," Michael continued. "I can't stay at your house forever. I need to look for apartments, and that requires having a car."

"Do you want me to drive you around after school tomorrow?" Max asked, trying to hide his relief that Michael was actually willing suggesting they spend time together. Even if it was just to look at apartments.

"No," Michael said quickly. "I don't _want_ you to. But… well, if you want to come…"

Max grinned. "I'd like to," he said.

"Okay. Well, I guess it's okay if you do," Michael said. He hesitated, then qualified his previous statement, "But you can't give your opinion about any of the apartments. Or about the neighborhoods." He thought about this for a moment, then added, "You know what? You should just not talk."

"Okay," Max agreed readily.

Michael nodded. "Okay," he echoed. Again, there was a silence, then Michael said, almost defensively, "And you're still a jerk."

Max smiled. "Okay."

"Okay."

* * *

Next Chapter: Confrontations and Consequences

Due: Sun 12/10


	56. Confrontations and Consequences

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: You know... I don't really have anything to say here. So... on with the story.

* * *

Chapter Fifty-Five: Confrontations and Consequences

"They suspect, Agent Pierce. I know they do," Ms. Topolski breathed, clutching the phone close to her ear and glancing around her office. She paced the floor restlessly, still trying to comprehend what she had discovered; that someone had stolen her file on Atherton. That meant that someone had been in her office, and who knew what else they had seen?

"I thought you were being careful?" Pierce's voice hissed coldly from the other end of the phone line.

"I was!" Ms. Topolski protested, flustered. "I still am." She hesitated, taking a moment to breathe slowly. "The subjects are not as easily observed as we had originally hoped."

"They are teenagers," Pierce reminded her.

Ms. Topolski shook her head even though she knew Pierce would not be able to see the action. They were much more than just teenagers, she had learnt that somewhere along the way.

"I gave you careful instructions to stay hidden, Agent Topolski. I expected you to follow them," Pierce continued, reprimand obvious in his smooth voice.

"I protected us," Ms. Topolski replied wearily. "I kept the Sheriff from taking Dr. Drake's death and making it public."

"Yes…" Pierce drawled, "but you exposed yourself in the process." He was silent for a moment, and Ms. Topolski could hear his even breathing. "You have put us at great risk. Clean up the mess, Agent Topolski, or I will do it for you."

And the line went dead with a resounding click.

Ms. Topolski stared at the phone in her hand, her eyes wide and frustrated. Finally, she placed the phone on the desk and glanced around her office quietly. What Pierce was asking was impossible, surely he realized that? And besides, it was a small town. Someone was going to get suspicious at some point. She had done the best she could.

Right now, she realized, she would need a miracle to fix this mess.

* * *

"Mr. Evans? Your wife is one line one."

The lawyer looked up in surprise and nodded to his secretary. "Thank you," he said, reaching for the phone. "Diane? Is everything alright?" Why was she calling him in the middle of the day? And why wasn't she just calling his cell phone?

"Everything's fine, Philip," Diane reassured her husband. "I just spoke to Sheriff Valenti. He wanted to warn me that Hank Guerin was awake. Someone needs to tell Michael."

"Is Michael at school?" Philip asked as he processed the news. So Hank was finally awake. This might not be good news for Michael. Granted the teenager would have to face the consequences of his actions, but Hank could still cause unnecessary trouble.

"Yes, he, Max, and Isabel left just a few minutes ago," Diane replied. She hesitated, then continued, "Philip, Hank can still cause emotional problems for Michael. And we… we need to protect him from that."

"Yes," Philip agreed. He thought back to an early conversation with Michael in which the teenager had explained that Hank had threatened to hurt Max and Isabel as well. "Hank is dangerous," he agreed.

They had to take the situation seriously. He didn't want his children to get hurt.

* * *

Isabel watched in amusement as Sara and Cliff argued venomously. She was standing far enough away that she wasn't able to hear the argument, but she could tell from the expression on their faces that the ending was not going to be pretty.

"They seem to be a little upset with each other," a voice remarked dryly, and Isabel turned to see Trudy standing behind her, smiling as she watched Sara and Cliff.

Isabel gave an appreciative laugh. "Yes, they do," she agreed. She paused for a moment, still watching the argument, before turning her attention back to Trudy. She had spent the previous night watching movies with her new 'friends,' and although she had enjoyed the experience, it was still a little strange. She had never really had any friends outside of Michael and Max, and she was not used to having girl friends.

"Hey," Tess greeted the two icily as she approached. She had spent the previous night worrying about Jim and the complications that had arisen, and it had not left her in a particularly cheerful mood.

"Hey, Tess," Trudy replied. "How was the beginning of your day?" As she asked the question, she noted Jessica at the end of the hallway, and waved to her.

Tess rolled her eyes. "Science was, as usual, a complete bore. And Perfect Parker was showing off again, answering every question…"

Jessica reached them and gave a ironic laugh. "Well, of course," she replied easily. "She wants to be a molecular biologist or something like that."

Isabel shook her head in disbelief. "Why would anyone want that job?" she asked rhetorically.

"I think it suits Liz," Tess replied with a smirk. "After all, you spend all your time working in a lab by yourself. You don't have to interact with people, you don't have to be social… Basically, you don't have to have a personality. It's perfect for her."

Jessica smirked, and Isabel shifted uncomfortably, not sure how to respond to Tess' comment. But no one said anything to contradict the other girl, so Isabel remained quiet.

Trudy, meanwhile, raised an eyebrow, but decided not to comment on Tess' demeanor. She had noticed changes in her friend lately, Tess had seemed almost… nice. But, like everyone else in the school, Trudy knew it was just a matter of time before the niceness wore off, and Ice Queen Tess was back.

Apparently today seemed to be the day.

"Why is Kyle still talking to her?" Jessica suddenly demanded, breaking the silence that had fallen. The other three girls twisted to see who Jessica was referring to, and were surprised to observe Kyle and Pam having what looked like a pleasant conversation.

Trudy's face went pale. "I have class," she said suddenly, and turned and walked away before anyone could stop her.

"Don't you have the same class as Trudy?" Jessica asked Isabel pointedly. Isabel gave her a nod and a blank stare, and Jessica sighed. "Well… what are you waiting for?" Isabel still did not seem to understand why Jessica was implying, the other girl said bluntly, "You should go to class also. To make sure Trudy is okay."

"Oh… okay," Isabel agreed as she turned and followed Trudy through the hallway. This was not something she would have ever done with Michael or Max, but, she reflected, they were guys, and they reacted differently to these types of situations.

Tess ignored Isabel and Jessica and marched up to Kyle. As she neared them, Pam looked up and caught sight of the furious blonde, and took that as her cue to leave. She murmured something under her breath to Kyle and slipped away.

"Why are you talking to her?" Tess demanded, hands on her hips as she stopped in front of Kyle.

"She's not a bad person," Kyle said softly.

"Oh, really…?" Tess mocked. "So it's fine for her to say nasty things about Trudy and me?"

"No," Kyle countered, "but why is it okay for you to say mean things about her?"

"Because she deserves them?" Tess spat back, lowering her voice as she realized that several people had gathered in the hall to watch the siblings quarrel.

"You don't know anything about her," Kyle protested.

"I know enough," Tess retorted. There was a silence, then she asked in a quiet voice, "Or do you think I should be best friends with her? Is that what you want? Your girlfriend and your sister to get along famously? Because I think Liz was an example of…"

"She's not my girlfriend," Kyle interrupted angrily.

Tess raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Finally came to your senses, did you?"

Kyle shrugged. "I like Pam as a friend," he replied, knowing it would annoy Tess to no end. As expected, her eyes narrowed at his comment. "Not, of course, that it is really any of your business…"

"I'm your sister," Tess reminded him, her tone now positively glacial.

Kyle nodded. "Yes," he agreed, "you are." And he stepped past her and walked away, leaving Tess shell-shocked by his blatant disregard.

* * *

By lunch, news of Tess and Kyle's argument had spread around the school. By lunch, everyone seemed to know that Pam Troy was, once again, in the middle of quite a lot of drama. By lunch, people cast wary looks at both Tess and Kyle as they passed through the hallway.

By lunch, Ms. Topolski had heard enough of the story to realize that she might have just saved herself. No matter what had happened in the past, she had never been able to cause a split between Kyle and Tess. They might have been angry with each other, but it was nothing like this. They had never just completely stopped speaking.

The goal was to cause problems. That was why she had approached Pam in the first place, that was why she had implanted in the other girl the idea to cause disruptions. She had tried that once with Trudy, tried to convince the other girl to be suspicious of Tess, and it hadn't worked. She had little hope for this one, but as it turned out, Pam had done more than she had expected.

Tess and Kyle had a falling out. This would put strain on Tess. This would cause problems for her in other areas as well. She may be superhuman, but she was also just a teenager, and she'd let her emotions get the better of her.

They'd make mistakes, Ms. Topolski realized with a grin. They'd make mistakes, and when they did…

She was interrupted from her train of thought by a knock on the door. Shaking her head in frustration, she called out, "Come in."

The door swung open to reveal Maria DeLuca. Ms. Topolski blinked in surprised. "Ms. Deluca, please sit down," she said, pointed towards the seat in front of her desk. Maria complied, shutting the door behind her. "How can I help you?" Ms. Topolski asked sweetly.

"You said I could come to you with any problems I had?" Maria said hesitantly. "You know… because of my mother and everything…" She bit her lip and looked away. "I hope you don't mind me coming now? I mean… I know it's lunch time for you also…"

"Of course I don't mind," Ms. Topolski said quickly. "I'm your guidance counselor, that's what I'm here for."

Maria offered a smile. "Thank you," she said sincerely.

"What's bothering you?" Ms. Topolski asked. Inwardly, she was slightly wary. She _knew_ that the group suspected her. It was simply impossible for them not to. But wouldn't they have informed Maria of their suspicions? Why would the girl choose to come and talk to her?

"I guess… a lot…" Maria sighed. "My mother lied to me about something very important for a very long time. And I don't know how to forgive her. I mean, I love my mother, and I know that she was doing what she thought was best for me. And… I guess in a way, it was best for me. And I have forgiven her… I just… I don't know how to be normal around her… I don't know how to go back." Maria stopped, suddenly realizing that she was rambling. She flushed deeply and gave a shrug.

Ms. Topolski gave Maria a warm smile and replied, "Maybe you shouldn't worry about going back. Maybe it's time to go forward."

"I don't understand," Maria question, looking puzzled.

"Well," Ms. Topolski paused, picking her words carefully. "If whatever your mother kept from you is as important as you say, then maybe things have changed too much for you to go back. Maybe you need to focus on going forward. Redefine your relationship with your mother. Just keep in mind that she loves you."

"You're right," Maria said with a decisive nod. "I should be thankful for that. I mean, I'm not like Michael. I have a family."

"Michael Guerin?" Ms. Topolski asked pleasantly.

Maria nodded. "I mean, his family left him in the desert. Who does that?" She shook her head in disgust. "All he really ever had was Hank, and Hank was… well, not pleasant." She shrugged. "At least my mother actually… loves me…"

Ms. Topolski nodded, feeling a slight twisting of guilt in her stomach. All he ever had was Hank, and she was trying to take that from him…

She shoved the thought away forcefully. He was not a victim, he was an enemy. He had attacked Hank Guerin. It didn't matter what Hank was like, Michael had almost killed him. He was not a victim, he was an enemy.

It was easier that way.

The sound of a commotion in the hallway caused both Maria and Ms. Topolski to look up in surprise. Ms. Topolski sighed and stood up. She gave Maria an apologetic glance. "Give me a moment, I'll be right back," she requested before walking out into the hallway.

"You don't know what the hell you're talking about!" Kyle slammed his fist into the wall near Jason's head as Jason ducked aside.

"Kyle, stop it!" Sara intervened, trying to grab Kyle's arm. She pulled him backwards, and he took a few stumbling steps away from Jason.

"What are you doing?" Trudy practically screeched, glaring at Kyle and Jason in turn. She was standing behind Jason with a hand on his arm, trying to calm him down.

"What is going on?" Ms. Topolski demanded, her hands on her hips as she surveyed the students gathered around her.

"Nothing," Kyle snapped sullenly. He glared at Jason for a moment, then shoved past the crowd of students and stormed away.

"Mr. Valenti," Ms. Topolski called after him, "I would like to see you in my office after school." Kyle turned and opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it and shrugged.

"Fine, whatever," he replied.

"You, too," Ms. Topolski said, nodding towards Jason. Jason glared mutinously, but knew better than to argue with a faculty member.

Ms. Topolski scanned the crowd, wondering who had shown up to witness the fight. As her eyes traveled over the familiar faces, she stopped suddenly and paled, as though she had seen a ghost.

At the far end of the hallway stood Liz Parker and Maria DeLuca.

Ms. Topolski glanced back at her office. There was no way Maria could have left her office and walked to the other end of the hall without Ms. Topolski noticing. It was simply impossible.

Without a word to anyone, Ms. Topolski turned and walked back to her office. She stepped inside, and found, as she had expected to, that the room was empty.

And ever drawer in her desk had been pulled open, every stack of files had been looked through.

She swallowed nervously and shut the door behind her. Pulling out her cell phone, she dialed a number and listened to the rings on the other end of the line.

"Pierce," a clipped voice answered.

"We have a problem, Agent Pierce," Ms. Topolski said briefly, her voice shaking. "Our shape-shifter has made contact."

"With you?"

"Yes," Ms. Topolski replied, her throat dry. "He went through my files."

There was a silence, then Pierce said coldly, "I warned you, Agent Topolski. I told you to clean up your mess and you failed…"

* * *

"Can we talk, Liz?" Max asked quietly as he approached the brunette and her best friend. Maria took one look at the seriousness of Max's face and excused herself. Max flashed a grateful smile at her as she walked away, then turned back to Liz.

"I don't want to talk, Max," Liz replied simply.

"Why not?" Max demanded, staring hard at her. He understood her frustration with him, but to so completely shut him out? What had happened?

"Because we just keep going in circles," Liz explained. Max gave her a puzzled frown, and she said, "I don't like something you do, and you say you're going to change it. And yet somehow, we end up back in the exact same spot."

"I'm trying," Max defended himself. "I am trying, and you aren't even willing to compromise!"

"Not willing to compromise?" Liz echoed, surprised. "Max, all I do is compromise. All I do is go out of my way to protect you!"

"Is that how you view this relationship?" Max questioned, hurt appearing briefly in his eyes. "Do you think I'm just using you to keep you quiet?"

"No, that's not what I meant…" Liz trailed off and glanced around the hallway. "Maybe this isn't the best place to have this argument…" she suggested, nodding to the few students who were lingering around before class.

Max sighed. "It's never the right place or the right time," he muttered under his breath.

"No, I guess it isn't," Liz replied with a bitter laugh.

"What do you want from me, Liz?" Max asked. "Everything you've requested, I've tried to do. You wanted me to not make decisions for you, not take it for granted that you would agree to anything I said, and I changed how I was acting. And now you're angry because I leave you out too much?"

"That's the problem, Max," Liz pointed out, struggling to put her feelings into words. "You see our relationship as inherently related to your secret. It isn't."

"Liz, everything in my life is related to my secret," Max replied. "Everything is affected by it. I can't change who I am."

"But this isn't who you are," Liz whispered, lowering her voice. "You're not just a Czechoslovakian with enemies. You're not just a confused teenager boy. You're… you're Max Evans. Can't you ever just be Max Evans?"

"I don't know how," Max replied honestly.

"Then I guess that's the problem," Liz sighed. She ran a hand through her hair absently and gave Max a searching stare. "Look, Max, I'm not saying that you aren't entitled to be concerned about your safety. And I do understand that a lot of who you are revolves around pretending to not be different. And I get that the stakes are high for you, and you have a lot too worry about."

"Then what's wrong?" Max asked insistently. "If you understand all of that, what is wrong?"

"What's wrong is that you still aren't trying to separate being a Czechoslovakian from being my boyfriend."

Max frowned, puzzled. "They aren't different," he objected. "They're both descriptions of the same person… of me."

Liz nodded. "I know. And the fact that you think that is what makes me feel like I'm just another person who knows your secret."

* * *

"This is ridiculous," Kyle complained as he stood outside Ms. Topolski's office. "I shouldn't be here, I didn't do anything wrong."

"You tried to hit me," Jason snapped as he folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall. School had ended, and the majority of students had left. Tess, who was still refusing to talk to Kyle, had managed to obtain a ride home from Sara. Trudy and Jessica were going to the Crashdown with Isabel, and Cliff and Chris had gone to football practice. That left Kyle and Jason alone, outside of Ms. Topolski's office, without anyone to act as referee.

"You deserved it," Kyle spat angrily.

"You're still hanging out with Pam," Jason pointed out haughtily. "She practically made Trudy cry, and you…"

"I don't have to justify myself to you," Kyle sneered. "And you had no right to insult Pam like that." He had been talking to Pam in the hallway, reassuring her that it wasn't entirely her fault that he and Tess were in the middle of an argument, when Jason had appeared out of nowhere and started yelling at the two of them.

"I was defending Trudy," Jason countered. The girl he liked, who he knew perfectly well was actually interested in Kyle. Jason and Trudy got along well, but the spark that was supposed to exist in a relationship was missing. Trudy had told Jason as much the day before, and it galled Jason to know end that Kyle could take away his girl without actually trying to do anything.

"Where is she?" Kyle asked, turning away from Jason and glancing at Ms. Topolski's closed door. They had already knocked twice, but the guidance counselor hadn't answered.

"Maybe she got held up," Jason suggested in a bored tone. He walked over to the door and turned the handle. It was unlocked.

"You shouldn't just walk into an office…" Kyle started to protest, but Jason ignored him and pushed the door open.

And they both stared at the room in shock.

It was completely empty. Every file was gone, every drawer cleaned out. The wastebasket was empty, the desk was clean. There was nothing that would give any indication that someone had once worked in this room.

Ms. Topolski had disappeared.

* * *

Mr. Evans walked into the hospital room and glanced around. He didn't like hospitals, didn't like the whiteness and the sterile cleanliness. It seemed unnatural to him. Unnatural, and a little creepy.

Pushing those thoughts away, he turned to the patient lying in the bed. Hank Guerin was staring up at him with an unpleasant leer on his face.

"Good evening, Mr. Guerin," Mr. Evans said pleasantly, taking a seat on the chair next to the bed.

"I spoke to the Sheriff and some of them other people. Looks like that brat finally got 'imself into a mess he ain't gonna get out of," Hank drawled, his voice smug.

"I wouldn't count on that," Mr. Evans answered, struggling to keep the anger out of his voice. "No, I really wouldn't count on that."

"Lazy, good fur nothin'…" Hank muttered, apparently deciding to ignore his visitor.

Mr. Evans leaned forward and assumed his most authoritative voice. "Did you know that I work as a lawyer?" he asked. Hank frowned at him, but said nothing. Mr. Evans nodded and continued, "So, let me give you some _friendly_ legal advice. It would be in your best interest to leave this town as soon as you recover."

"Is that a threat?" Hank demanded. "You think you can run me out o' this here town?"

Mr. Evans considered the question thoughtfully. Finally, he said, "You aren't welcome here anymore, Mr. Guerin." He stood abruptly, anger suddenly present in the lines of his face. "And if you come near Michael Guerin, or either of my children ever again, I promise you that you will regret it." He turned to leave, then paused at the door and glanced over his shoulder and Hank's shocked and pale face. "And yes, that was a threat."

As he walked out of the door, Mr. Evans realized that Hank had said he had spoken to the Sheriff and some other people. He wondered vaguely who those other people were, and what they had wanted with the foster father.

* * *

"Michael… thank you," Maria said quietly as she lead Michael through the lobby of the hotel and towards the elevators. "I just… this means a lot to me."

Michael shrugged awkwardly, embarrassed by the sentiment. "No problem," he said rather brusquely.

Maria smiled to herself. They stepped into the elevator, and she leaned over and hit the button for the third floor. It was a small hotel, but then, Roswell was a small town. They didn't have too many visitors to worry about.

Michael glanced down at the bag of Chinese food he was carrying. Maria had wanted to turn this into an event, with food and everything. He hadn't understood it at the time, still didn't understand it now, but it was important to her, so he had consented.

"He's making an effort," Maria said abruptly as the doors of the elevator slid open, revealing the hallway of the third floor. The two stepped out onto the carpeted floor. Maria sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "He's making an effort, so I feel like I should… reciprocate. And he did say he wanted to meet you. He just… he cares. You know?"

Michael really didn't know, but figured it was smarter not to mention that.

They reached the door at the end of the hallway, and Maria knocked. A moment later, it swung open, and Maria smiled up at the man who stood there.

"Hi," she said shyly. "I brought Chinese food… and Michael."

"It's a pleasure to finally have a chance to really talk to you, Michael. I've heard so much about you," Sean said, reaching out and firmly shaking Michael's hand. "I'm glad you could come."

A twinge of something passed through Michael as he shook Sean's hand, some sixth sense that warned him to be careful. But then it was gone, and Maria was beaming at him, and Sean was waiting expectantly for an answer, and Michael couldn't help but shrug and mutter, "Well, it was important to Maria…"

"Come in," Sean said quickly, opening the door more widely. "I'm dying for some of that Chinese food. It smells amazing."

* * *

Next Chapter: Pasta and Hamburgers

Due: Sun 12/17


	57. Pasta and Hamburgers

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: I don't know why, but this chapter was really difficult to write. So it is pretty short. And late. And I apologize for both of those. The next one should be longer.

* * *

Chapter Fifty-Six: Pasta and Hamburgers

"So, how long have you two been dating?" Sean asked casually, picking through his chicken with a pair of chopsticks and pulling out a piece of broccoli.

Maria shot him an annoyed look. He knew perfectly well that the last time he had talked to Maria, she and Michael had not been dating. So he must have been able to figure out that they had only recently started…

"We're not dating."

Maria swung around to look at Michael, both eyebrows raised at his blunt answer to the question. "We're not?" she asked coolly.

Michael was taken aback by the acidity in her voice. "Wait, are we?" he asked quietly, confused.

"What did you think we were doing?" Maria demanded, lowering her voice.

"I didn't mean to being up an awkward topic," Sean said quickly, cutting into the conversation. He gave Maria a slightly apologetic smile, but she could see something else in his eyes. She realized abruptly that he had asked the question to test Michael, and not because he actually wanted to know the answer.

"We're together," Michael explained, glancing over at Sean. "But we're not… well, we haven't actually gone on any dates… how exactly is this any of your business?"

"Michael!" Maria admonished.

"No, that's alright," Sean said casually, waving aside Maria's anger. "He has a point, I don't suppose it really is any of my business."

Maria bit her lip and nodded slowly, then turned to Michael and asked in a whisper, "We're together but not dating? How does _that_ work?"

"We're together, but we don't go on dates," Michael said, rolling his eyes. Wasn't that obvious?

"Why don't we go on dates?" Maria challenged, eyes narrowing.

"Do you want to go on dates?" Michael asked, somewhat surprised. His early assertion that they were not dating had been based on the assumption that Maria didn't want to go on dates.

Maria blinked. "Why wouldn't I?"

Sean got up and excused himself from the conversation, walking over to the nearby window and staring out at the sky. He gave the appearance of a man lost in his own thoughts, but even though Michael and Maria were speaking in low tones, he could clearly hear their words.

"You didn't want complicated," Michael explained.

"How is being together but not dating _less_ complicated?" Maria asked sarcastically.

Michael hesitated, at a loss for words. After a moment, he asked diffidently, "Do you want to date?"

"I thought we _were_ dating," Maria pointed out.

Michael frowned. "That doesn't answer the question," he replied.

"I…" It was Maria's turn to be flustered. "Of course I want to…" she said at last, although her tone clearly showed her doubt at to the validity of the statement. "Don't you…?"

"Um… okay." Honestly, Michael hadn't really thought about the consequences of being with Maria, and now that he was faced with the prospect of dating, the idea unsettled him. He didn't know how to date, he didn't know how to buy flowers or pick movies or remember anniversaries, or do any of those other things that a boyfriend was supposed to do.

And judging from the look on Maria's face, she hadn't thought about what it meant to being dating Michael either.

Sean strolled back over to the two teenagers and sat down again. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "I shouldn't have brought that up. I didn't realize how sensitive of a topic it was."

"That's alright," Maria answered calmly.

Michael stared at Sean for a moment, his eyes searching the other man's face. There was something there, something that tugged vaguely at Michael's thoughts, trying to tell him something. But he couldn't figure out what it was, and he turned his attention back to his food.

"So, Michael, what are your hobbies?" Sean asked politely.

"I'm looking for a job," Michael said slowly. He didn't really have any other hobbies, unless you could include hiding from the government as a hobby.

"Where do you want to work?" Sean asked politely.

"I don't know," Michael replied, his tone slightly guarded. "Why?"

"Michael, he's just trying to make small talk," Maria breathed in frustration.

Michael glanced at Maria and nodded. Once again, the nagging feeling rose, telling him that something was going on, something he shouldn't ignore. But he couldn't pin point anything that was actually wrong about the man sitting in front of him, so he once again pushed the thoughts away.

"You know," Sean said thoughtfully, "wasn't there a help wanted sign in front of that diner that you work at, Maria? The Crashdown?"

Maria considered that for a moment, her eyebrows scrunched together in concentration. "Um… yeah, I think so. Mr. Parker said something about needing a new cook." Her eyes lit up as she looked over at Michael. "I don't think it really takes much to be a cook. And Mr. Parker would be happy to teach you how to handle the grill."

Michael didn't say anything for a moment, then replied gruffly, "I'll think about it."

Maria nodded slowly, then stood up. "I'm going to use the restroom," she said softly, excusing herself and walking over to the small bathroom near the door leading into the room.

Sean watched her go, waiting until the door had closed behind her, then he turned to Michael. "You don't like me very much, do you?" he asked matter-of-factly.

"I don't know you," Michael replied.

Sean shrugged. "That's fair." He looked away as though contemplating his choice of words, then continued, "You're very protective of Maria. I can tell that just by watching the way you act around her."

"Oh?" Michael retorted.

Sean gave a thin smile. "I'm glad you are. She's a special girl, and she's been through so much lately… I'm glad she has people to rely on."

"You mean since you were never around?" Michael asked coldly.

Sean gave Michael a scrutinizing look and wondered how much he knew of the circumstances surrounding Maria's birth. "Yes," he agreed at last. "I suppose I don't really have the right to give you the third degree on your relationship with Maria since I've never been there for her. I just… she _is_ a special girl and she _does_ deserve to have someone who cares about her."

Michael nodded again. The uneasy feeling was slowly fading away now, and he wondered if perhaps it had just been his own paranoia mixed in with his protectiveness of Maria.

"She told me you aren't her real father," Michael said abruptly.

Sean swallowed nervously. "I wondered how much she told you," he admitted. "But I didn't want to say anything if you didn't know…"

"Why not?" Michael demanded.

Sean's gaze flickered quickly to the bathroom door as it swung open and Maria stepped out into the room. "It wasn't my secret to tell," he murmured, low enough that only Michael could hear him.

Michael eyed Sean as Maria came to join them again. The man obviously respected Maria's privacy, and that he could admire. And, as Maria had said earlier, Sean was trying. He was putting effort into being there for Maria now. This was important to Maria, and Maria was important to Michael, so…

Maybe he should give Sean a chance.

Sean glanced at Michael out of the corner of his eye and noted the way Michael's features relaxed, became a little less guarded, a little more friendly. He smiled inwardly. He was slowly gaining Michael's trust, which meant it was time to move on to the next phase of his plan.

* * *

"Do you think that there's a difference between you as Isabel Evans and you as an alien?" Max asked, taking a seat next to Isabel on her bed.

She gave him a quizzical look. "I don't know…maybe. Why?" She pulled her knees into her chest and watched as Max stared at the wall blankly, obviously thinking of something else.

"Liz thinks there should be a difference between me as her boyfriend and me as an alien," Max replied at last. "She wants… she wants to have a relationship that doesn't revolve around my… secret."

Isabel frowned and considered this thoughtfully. "Can you blame her?" she asked at last. "No girl wants to be second best."

"But what if there isn't a difference?" Max asked quietly. "What if I can't separate out the different parts of me? I think… everything is so out of control right now. We don't know what is happening and I… I'm worried. Afraid, even. And I can't just put that on hold when Liz wants me to."

"Did you try telling her that?" Isabel asked reasonably.

Max shrugged. "I don't know," he admitted. "I mean… we talked, but… I don't know if I said what I thought I was saying. It's just… hard."

"Because you love her," Isabel commented, nodding slowly.

Max gave his sister a sharp look. "What?" he asked curiously.

Isabel rolled her eyes. "Do you really think we haven't noticed the way you look at her?"

Max tilted his head to the side as he studied Isabel. Tess also had told him that she could tell he loved Liz by the way he looked at the brunette human. "Did everyone figure out that I loved Liz before I did?" he questioned.

The corners of Isabel's lips quirked slightly. "Probably," she said, struggling not to laugh. "You aren't known for being incredibly perceptive when it comes to women and relationships." She slanted a look at her brother and added, "Sometimes I think even Michael's better at understanding girls than you are."

"Take that back!" Max cried with mock horror as he threw a pillow at Isabel. Isabel laughed, tears of mirth sparkling in her eyes.

"Just try talking to Liz," Isabel said at last. "Just try… try telling her everything you told me."

"What if she doesn't understand?" Max questioned, leaning back against the headboard. "What if she doesn't want to listen."

"She wants to listen, Max, and she wants to understand. She wants this relationship to work, otherwise she would have broken up with you already," Isabel replied pointedly. "She loves you also."

Max gave Isabel a slight smile. "Thanks," he murmured.

"No problem," Isabel replied casually. There was a pause, then Isabel said, "You know you can always talk to me about stuff, right?"

Max shot her a puzzled look. "I know," he replied, confused.

"I just… we haven't really talked lately. At least, not about non-alien-related things. Everyone seems to be so focused on all the issues we have at the moment, and I… I miss hanging out like we used to."

"Me, too," Max agreed. Then he said softly, "Although, you seem to run with a different crowd these days."

Isabel shook her head. "I don't know how that happened," she admitted. "One day Tess and I can't stand each other, and the next day we're eating lunch together and watching movies together and talking about clothing together."

"You seem to like hanging out with them," Max said.

"Yeah, I guess…" Isabel shrugged. "I don't know. It's nice being friends with them. Being popular. Everyone pays attention to you, and I… I guess after trying to stay hidden for so long, I never really realized that being noticed was… I don't know. It's nice, I guess. I just… it's still weird, you know?"

"Um… not really," Max replied. "I don't actually have experience in that sort of thing."

Isabel rolled her eyes. "Right." She swung her feet over the side of the bed and stood up. Max stood up also, and Isabel asked abruptly, "Do you think it's weird that the shape-shifter hasn't attacked us yet?" Max gave her a surprised look, and she continued, "I know it's a random question, but it has been bothering me lately. We know there is this alien out there who has killed at least twice. Maybe more times. And yet he hasn't attacked us yet."

"Maybe he's not an enemy?" Max suggested.

"But if he's an ally, why hasn't he contacted us?" Isabel pointed out. "It just seems odd."

"Yeah," Max agreed. It did seem odd. And for some reason he couldn't quite place, it made him even more worried that the shape-shifter hadn't attacked yet.

What was he waiting for?

* * *

The apartment was completely empty. Everything had been cleared out, every drawer, every file, ever cabinet. The place had been cleaned, swept, dusted. There were no footprints on the floorboards, no fingerprints on the doorknobs.

Sheriff Valenti shook his head. Why would Ms. Topolski just leave? Had she done it of her own volition, or had someone forced her out?

"Sir?"

He glanced over his shoulder at Deputy Fisher. "Yes?"

"What should I write this up as? Disappearing isn't exactly a crime." He held up his notepad as though to demonstrate the fact that he needed to write something. "Do we suspect foul play?"

"She alerted no one that she was going to leave," Valenti mused. "It seems unlikely someone as responsible as her would do that. I think that is enough to at least warrant concern." He ran a hand through his hair absently. "Write it up as possible kidnapping or homicide."

Deputy Fisher nodded and began scribbling details in his notepad.

Ms. Topolski was FBI. She was investigating reports of supernatural occurrences around here. She suspected Michael Guerin and the two Evans. Had they done something to her, or had the FBI requested that she leave?

Valenti sighed. He didn't know the answer, but he was determined to find it. If the Evans and Guerin were in anyway involved in this…

Well, he would have to deal with that matter when he had the proof.

* * *

Isabel rolled to her side and sat up in bed. She couldn't sleep, and the restlessness was starting to annoy her. She had done what she normally did when she couldn't sleep, which was to take a stroll through different people's dreams. Unfortunately, that had been incredibly boring.

Liz had been dreaming about Max and Max had been dreaming about Liz. No surprise on that one. Maria had been dreaming about her mother, Sean, and herself, and imagining them having a family dinner. They had resembled the Brady Brunch, and Isabel had consequently left the dream feeling a little sick from the overbearing sappiness. Her father had been dreaming about a romantic dinner with her mother, and she had jumped out of that one as quickly as possible, not really wanting to see just how far the romance between her parents was going to go. Michael had been dreaming…

No, she didn't want to think about that.

The dream had been eerily familiar. She and Michael, standing on the cliffs, locked in a passionate kiss…

She shivered as she remembered the dream. She really did not want to think about it.

She sighed and glanced at the yearbook in front of her. Chewing her bottom lip thoughtfully, she flipped through the pages searching out a specific picture. Finding what she was looking for, she put her finger carefully onto the photo and felt herself being pulled into the dream.

It was a stupid idea to be here because Tess would most likely know and kick her out, but still…

She wanted something interesting and no one else was dreaming about anything remotely worth watching.

She found herself standing in the kitchen of the Valenti house. Jim was sitting at the table, and a younger Tess was standing by the window, staring dreamily off into space. Kyle was leaning against the refrigerator door, searching for food.

Isabel frowned. It was the same dream she had witnessed once before in Kyle's mind. The dream that had been a memory so deeply buried in Kyle's subconscious that he didn't remember remembering it. But as she glanced around, some strange sensation gave Isabel the distinct impression that Tess _did_ remember this incident.

"There's no hamburger," Kyle whined.

Jim shrugged and replied, "I guess it all got eaten. There's some pasta."

"I don't want pasta, I want hamburger," the young Kyle demanded. He glared at Tess and asked angrily, "Did you eat it?"

Isabel turned to look at Tess, trying to understand what could possibly be important about this memory. But before the young Tess got a chance to reply, Isabel felt herself thrown forcefully out of the dream. The power of the attack shoved her off of her own bed, and she jolted into alert awakeness as she hit the floor, the yearbook falling on top of her.

Isabel's cell phone rang, and she reached for it, already knowing who was calling her. without even bothering to look at the caller ID, she clicked the phone on and said, "Look, Tess, I didn't mean…"

"Stay out of my dreams, Isabel," Tess spat, interrupting Isabel's excuse. And then the line went dead.

Isabel groaned inwardly and dropped the cell phone onto the floor. She stood up and shoved her yearbook in between the other books on her shelf, then glanced over at the clock. It was two in the morning, and she wished that she could just fall asleep. But the restlessness was still there.

The phone rang again.

Isabel glanced at the caller ID, but didn't recognize the number. She frowned, puzzled, but answered anyway.

"Hello?"

The voice that answered was unfamiliar. It was raspy and cold, and she could somehow tell that it wasn't completely human.

"As you get older, you learn to manage your gifts. But they get stronger as well, and sooner or later you're going to lose control once again. Be careful, Princess, or they'll find you. And trust me, you won't like where you end up."

The line went dead.

Isabel dropped the phone and screamed.

* * *

Next Chapter: Two Steps Forward, Three to the Side, and One Back

Due: Sun 12/24 or Mon 12/25


	58. Two Steps Forward

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: So, remember back before Dr. Drake died when he was investigating and he called his friend from the Associated Press for help? The friend's name was Nick Latcher, and Nick was the one who discovered that Drake was getting into the middle of something dangerous, and advised him to stop. Remember that for this chapter.

* * *

Chapter Fifty-Seven: Two Steps Forward, Three to the Side, and One Back

Cynthia Drake considered herself to be a collected and poised woman. She did not have emotional breakdowns, nor did she shed tears over spilt milk. She was a complete East Coaster from her perfectly manicured nails and stylishly cut hair to her Victorian-style decorated living room with matching rugs and lamp shades. She was not cut out for life in dusty Roswell, New Mexico, and had disliked every moment of it.

But her husband had instantly fallen in love with the quirky inhabitants of this sleepy little town, and she had consented to living here because it made him happy. They were in love, their marriage had yet to hit any major obstacles, and they had managed to overcome all the small twists and turns and bumps in the road.

Which was why she refused to believe that he would just pack a bag and leave her and the children without even saying goodbye.

And because she refused to believe that, she had decided to call anyone and everyone who might be able to provide an answer for her. She had spent several days dialing numbers and the majority of their friends had nothing to offer her but sympathy and condolences.

She held the phone to her ear and listened to the rings on the other end of the line. She was running out of people to call and she needed a lead, any lead. And she needed it soon.

A man's voice answered at the other end of the line. "Nick Latcher, special correspondent for the Associated Press."

"Nick? It's Cynthia Drake," Cynthia began. Before she could continue the conversation any further, however, Nick cut her off.

"Cynthia, stop talking," he ordered. There was a pause while the surprised housewife lapsed into silence, then Nick continued, "Stop what you are doing, okay? You just need to… Just, don't do anything until you hear from me again."

And the line went dead.

* * *

"Isabel, what the hell is going on?" Max hissed under his breath as the two took their seats at the breakfast table. Her scream last night had woken the entire house, and Max didn't believe the lie she told their parents, that it had just been a bad dream. 

Isabel shot a worried glance at her mother. "Later," she whispered, her tone filled with warning. Her hair was disheveled and her eyes were shadowed by dark circles.

Mrs. Evans took a seat across from her children and poured herself a glass of orange juice. "Did you sleep alright after the dream?" she asked Isabel.

Isabel gave a fake smile and forced herself to reply, "Yes, I did. I'm sorry I woke you up."

"Where's Dad? And Michael?" Max asked, glancing around the kitchen. Michael was still staying with them, although he and Max had looked at a few promising apartments yesterday after school. The owners of the apartments still wanted proof that Michael would be able to pay the rent on time, so until Michael got a job, it was unlikely that he would be able to sign a lease on anything.

"Your father is talking to Michael right now…" Mrs. Evans replied, trying to keep her voice casual.

"About what?" Isabel asked instantly, not fooled by her mother's nonchalant tone.

Mrs. Evans sighed. "Hank is awake," she explained. "So… well, your father is just trying to prepare Michael for whatever happens next."

"None of this is Michael's fault," Isabel snapped angrily. "It's Hank who should be in trouble."

"I know, honey. The four of us know that," Mrs. Evans waved her hand to include herself and Max in the comment. "But it is a judge and jury that Michael is going to have to convince, and… well, his track record doesn't look good."

"It's not fair," Isabel muttered under her breath.

"No," Mrs. Evans agreed, speaking more to herself than to either of her children, "it isn't." She took a sip of her orange juice and a bite of cereal.

Max stared down at his own food, suddenly not hungry. They had healed Hank's mind and insured that he wouldn't remember anything about their gifts, but he was still a threat to their safety. If he managed to get Michael in trouble…

Isabel cast a sidelong look at her brother and bit her lip. She could read his thoughts plainly on his face, and she agreed with his concerns.

Mrs. Evans stood up abruptly and said, "I'm going to go remind your father and Michael that they both need to eat something before they leave for work and school." And she left the kitchen.

Max quickly turned to Isabel. "What happened last night?" he breathed.

Isabel swallowed nervously. "I couldn't sleep, so I was dream-walking. And everyone had really boring dreams, so I decided to look into Tess'. She was having this dream… it was the same dream that I'd seen in Kyle's head once… more like a memory."

"And that scared you enough to make you scream?" Max asked, not understanding the point of her story.

"No!" Isabel shook her head. "I… Tess kicked me out of her dream. And then… this guy called me on my cell phone."

"Who?" Max asked curiously, watching his sister through narrowed eyes. Her face was rapidly losing color, and her fingers were clenched into tight fists. Whatever this guy had said, it had obviously terrified her.

"I don't know." Isabel paused, struggling for words. "He wasn't… Max, his voice didn't sound human. I don't know why I knew that, I just… I think he might have been…"

"The shape-shifter?" Max supplied when Isabel stopped speaking. Isabel nodded dumbly, and Max pressed, "What did he say to you?" Isabel didn't answer, just stared at him mutely. "Izzy?"

"He said we'd lose control of our gifts eventually. He said we'd slip up, and they'd find us. And we wouldn't like what happened to us," Isabel replied at last, her voice shaking.

"He threatened you?" Max demanded furiously.

Isabel considered this, then rejected the idea. "No, I don't think it was a threat. I think… I think it was a warning." She ran a hand through her hair, absently pushing a few strands out of her eyes. "Max, he had my cell phone number. And… he called me Princess."

"Princess?" Max echoed, confused.

Isabel shrugged. "How did he know my phone number, Max? It's my cell phone, it's not like you can find it in the phone book."

Max didn't have an answer to give, so he said nothing, just stared at Isabel's pale face. Finally, he reached out and took her hand. "Izzy? Izzy, look at me." She complied with the request, lifting her eyes to his face. "We're not going to let anything happen to you. I promise. This guy, whoever he is, if he wants to hurt you, he's going to have to go through me first."

Isabel gave her brother a slight smile, feeling slightly reassured.

* * *

"So… I met Sean last night," Michael said casually as Max pulled the car into a parking space in the school lot. 

"Maria's father?" Isabel asked as she unbuckled her seatbelt and got out of the car. "What was he like?" She wasn't good enough friends with Maria, Liz, or Alex to really have any reason to have met Sean, but she was still interested in the details. After all, this was a major part of Maria's life right now, and Isabel could tell that Maria was becoming a major part of Michael's life.

Michael considered this, then said, "He seems to really care." But the hesitation in his voice caused both Isabel and Max to look at him sharply. He shrugged and continued slowly, "There's just… something off about him. I get a bad feeling."

"You're just being overprotective of Maria," Isabel replied, climbing out of the car. "You don't want her to get hurt again."

Michael raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, Sean said something like that also…"

"Do you think there's anything else to your feeling?" Max asked curiously as the three started walking towards the school.

"Like what?" Michael asked. "I really doubt he's FBI or anything like that."

"I didn't mean that the feeling was related to our secret," Max explained, refuting Michael's concern. "But maybe he's not trustworthy. Maybe he's playing Maria and Ms. DeLuca or something like that."

Michael rubbed the back of his head thoughtfully. "Maybe," he conceded, "but Maria's really… she's getting close to him now."

"So keep an eye on him," Isabel suggested. "You're probably just being paranoid, but it couldn't hurt to be careful." She walked towards the stairs to the school, then stopped abruptly and turned to look back at Michael and her brother. "You know, we didn't think Ms. Topolski could be FBI either, and look how close she got to us. Maybe Sean is more than he seems."

"He hasn't tried to get information on us," Michael pointed out. "So far he's just asked me questions about my relationship with Maria and if I have hobbies."

"Maybe he doesn't want you to get too suspicious," Isabel suggested.

Max stared at Isabel for a moment, then shook his head. "You know, normally it's Michael coming up with the conspiracy theories and us who are refuting them, not the other way around."

Isabel grinned slightly and nodded in agreement. "Well, it was Michael with the weird feeling," she said slowly. "He's the one who initially suggested the idea that there's something off with Maria's father."

"So maybe he is FBI?" Michael mused.

"An alien called you last night," Max muttered under his breath, glancing around to make sure they weren't being overheard. "Let's focus on that problem first, shall we? One thing at a time…"

Isabel bit her lip, still unsettled by the nighttime caller. "I'll tell Tess about it today, see if she has any ideas of what to do now."

"It's not like we really have any clues we can even follow," Max said.

"Atherton. Somehow he's related, and I don't think we've looked into that enough," Michael offered.

"We are not driving to Texas again," Max said firmly, and Isabel stifled a laugh. Michael glowered at both of them.

"If we hadn't gone, we wouldn't have all the information we have now, would we?" he snapped.

"Well, we can look into Atherton more later," Max said after a moment's pause. "Right now, we also have to consider Hank and whatever is going to happen with that. You need to be careful. Now is not a good time to get into trouble." He directed the last warning at Michael, but Isabel nodded as well, agreeing with his assessment.

Michael sighed and looked away from both his friends. He didn't know what was going to happen with Hank, and right now he just wanted the entire situation to be over.

* * *

"Liz?" Alex walked quickly over to his best friend and caught her arm moments before she could step into the classroom. "Do you have a moment?" 

"Class is about to start," Liz replied, gesturing towards the open classroom door in confusion.

"This is important," Alex replied, shooting a quick look around to make sure they weren't being watched. He lowered his voice and explained, "It's Czechoslovakian related."

Liz frowned, suddenly annoyed that everything in her life seemed to revolve around this big secret. But she could see the worry on Alex's face, and she nodded and followed him away from the room. They took a few steps out into the hallway and then Alex ran a hand through his hair and gave Liz a serious look.

"Ms. Topolski disappeared."

Liz raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"I mean she's gone, office cleared out and everything," Alex explained. "I was here yesterday afternoon, working on some computer stuff and I overheard Kyle calling his father. Apparently Kyle was supposed to meet with Ms. Topolski because he'd started a fight or something, and Ms. Topolski was gone."

"And her office was cleared out?" Liz repeated. She assumed that if Kyle had told his father, Tess probably knew by now as well. And if Tess knew, it was likely that Max, Isabel, and Michael would know shortly. Still, she should probably mention this to Max when she saw him, just in case he hadn't run into Tess yet.

"It gets worse," Alex whispered. "I ran a search through the school files to see why she was leaving. Normally they electrically enter information about this sort of thing, but there was nothing there. In fact, her entire file was empty."

"Empty?" Liz shook her head. "Wait, how did you even get into the files?"

Alex looked away for a moment. "Not legally," he said at last, and Liz had to force herself not to burst into laughter and the contrite look on his face. Alex shrugged. "But someone erased her file, Liz. It didn't have anything in it. No forwarding address, no resume, no job description, no notes. Nothing."

"That doesn't make sense. Why go to all the trouble to clear out a file and yet not erase the file itself?" Liz asked in confusion.

"Because they were changing it," Alex explained. "As I was looking at her file, every time I hit the refresh button, something new would appear. A new resume, a new forwarding address, some new notes about her…"

Realization dawned in Liz's eyes, "She was covering her tracks. Fabricating what she did here so that no one could find out where she went or what she was doing while she was here."

Alex nodded grimly. "Exactly."

Liz opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it. The teacher had just stepped out of the classroom and was glaring at the two of them.

"Ms. Parker, I trust you do intend to be in class today? And Mr. Whitman, don't you have your own class to attend?"

Liz flushed beet red, but Alex replied smoothly, "I'm sorry. I was just updating Liz on Amy DeLuca's condition. I didn't meant to make her late for class, but I wanted her to know everything that was going on with Maria's mother. We are both very worried about Maria, you know…"

The teacher's expression instantly softened. "Oh, of course. I understand."

Alex turned to Liz. "I'll talk to you later," he said, giving her a slight smile.

Liz shook her head, wondering silently when Alex had become such a proficient liar. What had happened to the little boy who would stutter and blush if he so much as took a cookie from the cookie jar without permission?

* * *

"Isabel," Tess called, slipping in between Max and Isabel and pulling the taller blonde by the arm. "Walk with me to class." It wasn't a request, and something in Tess' eyes told Isabel not to argue. 

"What's up?" Isabel asked under her breath as she and Tess walked away from Max and Michael. She glanced over her shoulder at her brother, giving him a quick look, but he just shrugged. She sighed and rubbed her eyes, wondering how long it would be before she got used to this new thing of being friendly with Tess.

"You were in my dreams last night," Tess said softly.

"I'm sorry…" Isabel began, but Tess interrupted her before she had a chance to finish the sentence.

"Forget about it, that's not what's bothering me right now." Tess placed enough emphasis on the words 'right now' to indicate that she did plan on yelling at Isabel later, but at the moment she had other concerns. "Did you… did you notice anything unusual in my dream?"

"What do you mean?" Isabel asked, confused. "It was just a dream… wasn't it?"

Tess looked up in surprise at the suspicion in Isabel's voice and replied a little too quickly, "Of course it was a dream. What else would it be?" Before Isabel could answer, however, Tess continued worriedly, "I just… did you notice anyone else in my dream?"

"Anyone else?" Isabel asked, confused. "Tess, I'm the only one of us with the ability to dream-walk."

Tess drew a slow breath and exhaled. She chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully, then said, "I just thought maybe you had brought Max or Michael with you."

"It was just me," Isabel replied, now not only confused but slightly scared. "Tess, what's going on?"

"I don't know."

Isabel studied Tess for a moment, taking the time to look at the other girl's features. Her face was pale, more pale than usual, and her blue eyes seemed to continually dart around the hallway as though she thought they were being watched.

"Tess?" Isabel pressed, now positive that something was wrong.

Tess turned her gaze to Isabel and said, "It felt like there was someone else in the dream. I can't explain it, and I could be completely wrong. It just felt like someone else was spying on me."

"I can top your story," Isabel said confidently. Tess raised an eyebrow and Isabel continued smoothly, "Someone not entirely human called me last night. On my cell phone."

Tess tilted her head to the side. "Ms. Topolski disappeared. Jim was at her apartment last night, it was completely cleaned out."

"Hank's awake, and he's already talking to lawyers and the Sheriff," Isabel replied with a smirk.

Tess sighed. "Okay, you win. You have the most news."

Isabel rolled her eyes. "Lucky me," she muttered, her words dripping with sarcasm. She paused long enough to think about what Tess had said, then asked in confusion, "Ms. Topolski left?"

"Yes," Tess replied. "Hank's talking?"

Isabel nodded. "And let's not forget the non-human that called me last night," she added.

"Hey," Trudy announced her presence cheerfully as she walked towards her friends. Sara and Jessica were following her. Tess and Isabel instantly stopped talking and turned to look at the others.

"Hey," Isabel greeted, somewhat shyly. She shot Tess a quick look that said they would talk about everything later, and Tess gave an almost imperceptible nod.

They would have a lot to talk about later.

* * *

Mr. Evans leaned back in his seat and stared around his office. He took a few moments to organize his thoughts before he turned his attention back to the man in the seat across from him. Finally, resting his hands on the desk, he asked, "There is no way this could be avoided?" 

Deputy Fisher shook his head. "I'm sorry, sir, but this is the only possibility. We can't circumvent the law."

"Michael is a good kid," Mr. Evans countered. "He doesn't deserve this."

"Hank Guerin almost died," Deputy Fisher responded. "Perhaps Michael was acting in self defense. Perhaps what he did was justified. It does not change the facts of the case. Hank Guerin wishes to press charges, and unless he decides to drop those charges, Michael Guerin will go to court."

Mr. Evans bowed his head regretfully. There really wasn't anything he could do. He had already threatened Hank, and if the foster father didn't respond to that, then he was out of options.

"One more thing, Mr. Evans," Deputy Fisher added as he stood up to leave.

"Yes?"

"I'm sure that you are aware that, because Michael Guerin has requested and been granted emancipation he is now considered an adult under the law?"

"I am aware," Mr. Evans answered.

"Hank Guerin is going to press charges of violent assault and underage drinking," Deputy Fisher said softly. "As an adult, Michael Guerin is facing the possibility of jail time for the assault."

Mr. Evans looked up sharply. "That's ridiculous and completely unfair to Michael," he protested, but even as he said the words he knew that Deputy Fisher was correct. Michael was an adult now, and had to be held responsible for his actions as such.

"It might be better to enter a plea bargain," Deputy Fisher offered. "For a situation like this, Michael Guerin would most likely be required to attend anger management classes, be put on probation, and have to do community service. But he would stay out of jail."

"And what would Hank get?" Mr. Evans asked bitterly. "Anything? Would he even be reprimanded for anything he's done to Michael in the last ten years? Or would he go free?"

"Michael did not press charges," Deputy Fisher pointed out.

"Michael wanted this to be over," Mr. Evans growled in a low voice.

Deputy Fisher gave a sympathetic smile. "Of course he did. But the altercation involved two people, and it isn't over until both agree to end it."

* * *

Nick Latcher stared out of the window of the airplane. He hated flying. He hated everything about it from the uncomfortable seats to the tiny packets of peanuts that were always to salty and left him incredibly thirsty. 

He didn't know much about this mess that Justin Drake had managed to get himself caught in the middle of. He had advised his friend to be careful and to keep a low profile, but apparently Drake had either ignored the advice, or it hadn't been enough to keep him safe.

After Cynthia started calling all her friends on the East Coast, a few people had mentioned the entire affair to Nick, mostly just in passing. He hadn't liked that she'd been digging into this because it could put her in danger as well. What if her phone lines were tapped? Or perhaps he was being paranoid and overreacting to the situation. Perhaps Drake really had just abandoned his family, as unlikely as it seemed.

Either way, he knew he couldn't sit by and say nothing while Cynthia suffered through this experience.

After Cynthia had called, he had done what Drake would have wanted him to do, and booked a flight to Roswell. With any luck, he could convince Cynthia to drop the entire investigation and move back to the East Coast with her children. It would keep her safe.

And maybe while he was there, he could do a little investigating himself. He had some answers, but not enough, and he knew Cynthia deserved as much of the truth as he could uncover.

* * *

Next Chapter: Just Me 

Due: Sun 12/31

Merry Christmas


	59. Just Me

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: So I had a term paper to write (I hate term papers) and it consumed my life for the past couple weeks (I hate term papers) so I didn't really have a chance to write (I hate term papers). In penance for that, I've decided to post two chapters at once now that I am finally done with this stupid paper. Did I mention that I hate term papers?

* * *

Chapter Fifty-Eight: Just Me

Isabel watched as her brother moodily paced the room. As soon as school had let out, Liz had found Max and explained what Alex had told her about Ms. Topolski. Isabel had then informed him of Tess' suspicion that someone else had been in her dream. And now Max was deep in thought, staring blankly at nothing as he walked back and forth across the length of his room.

On top of all of this, Hank was pressing charges and Michael would have to appear in court.

A picture frame on his desk started to wobble slightly, and Isabel turned her attention towards it. "Max," she warned, gesturing towards the frame.

Max glanced at the frame and took a few calming breaths before nodding. He knew he couldn't lose control of his emotions or something dangerous would happen. They couldn't afford another problem right now.

The picture frame stopped shaking.

Isabel rubbed her eyes. What was it that strange alien had said to her?

_As you get older, you learn to manage your gifts. But they get stronger as well, and sooner or later you're going to lose control once again._

Did he know how close they were to falling apart? Did he know that they were walking the fine line between safety and exposure? Did he know how complicated and screwed up everything was?

Was he watching them?

"Have you spoken to Liz at all?" Isabel asked delicately, changing the subject. There was something in her voice that he couldn't quite identify.

Max shook his head. "No, not since she told me what Alex knew." He shot Isabel a curious look, but she wasn't looking at him. He sighed and turned away. Since when was Isabel so interested in his relationship with Liz?

"I'm going over to Jessica's this afternoon," Isabel said abruptly, changing the subject yet again.

Max frowned. His sister seemed distracted, and although he knew she was worried about what had happened last night, namely the strange, possibly dangerous alien having calling her on her cell phone, he didn't think that was what was bothering her.

He hadn't seen her at all during lunch or the end of the day. Had something happened then? He was about to ask her, when she stood up and walked out of the room, barely sparing him a backwards glance. He stared at the now closed door for a moment, confused, but then dismissed the concern. If it was alien related, she would have told him. If it was anything she wanted to talk about, she would have told him. He would just wait and see what happened.

He glanced at the clock on his desk. Liz was working at the Crashdown, but her shift would be over in an hour. He wanted… no, he _needed_ to talk to her. But she wouldn't be available for an hour. Running a hand through his hair, he let out a shaky breath and walked over to the computer. It was time to do some serious research on Atherton.

It was easy enough to find the basic information about the man. His date of birth and death, his residence, his life's works. But that wasn't what Max wanted, so he turned his attention to the fan sites.

_Atherton Unveiled. The True Atherton. Conspiracies: Atherton and Aliens._

They were all websites dedicated to the belief that this man had somehow found proof of aliens. Max scrolled through each site, reading the notes and commentaries that littered the internet. Most were ridiculous, but he smiled to himself as he read through an entry from a man who declared that aliens had taught Atherton secrets of the mystical properties of the world. With these properties, and the post didn't say exactly what those properties were, Atherton had planned to take over the world and establish a peaceful order where everyone was safe and happy and poverty, disease, and war no longer existed. This being contradictory to the aims of the government, and according to this man all governments were evil, the CIA and FBI had rallied together to kill Atherton and prevent him from bringing about harmony and peace.

Behind every rumor and legend is a grain of truth.

They knew that the government didn't know anything about Atherton. Or, at least, the FBI hadn't know anything about him prior to their discovery of his house in Texas. So, if there had been some kind of cover-up, it had to have been perpetrated by someone else.

What was it Michael had said? He had felt that someone not human had been in that house at some point in the past? And then there was Tess' vision of the nonhumans hiding that symbol on the wall.

What was so special about the symbol?

Just four squares, each with a swirl inside, connected by an x.

On a whim, Max typed the words squares, four, and Atherton into Google.

_The Four Square._

Max frowned at the name of website but pressed the link. Instantly, a page appeared. He stared at it, his mouth slightly open, as several images of the same symbol appeared in front of him. Some where more detailed than others, some looked like they had been hurried sketched on pieces of paper or napkins. But each picture showed the same symbol.

He scrolled down to the bottom of the page and scanned the paragraph of explanation.

_The Four Square is a symbol of power and hope. Although little is known about the shape, it is believed that the x linking the four squares represents a familial bond of some sort. The squares themselves are either people or families, perhaps the entire symbol represents an extended family. The spirals represent power. One leading hypothesis is that the symbol is similar to a coat of arms._

_The symbol was first introduced into the world of alien believers by James Atherton in his book _Among Us. _Since then, many believers have tried to find the exact origins of the symbol but have failed at this task. Whatever information Atherton had has appeared to have died with him…_

Max stopped reading and glanced at the very bottom of the page, searching for the creator of the website. He finally found the name in the bottom right had corner and stared at it.

Brody Davis.

Max jotted the name down on a piece of paper, then closed the window on his computer and glanced at the clock. He needed to head over to the diner to talk to Liz. He would tell the others what he found later.

But even as he left his room, the name assigned to the symbol still echoed in his head.

_Four Square._

It meant something, he was sure of it. He just wasn't sure what.

* * *

Isabel stared at the perfectly manicured lawn and the small, but stylish, house in front of her. Jessica had invited her over to hang out that afternoon, along with Tess, Trudy, Sara, and some boys. She wasn't sure who else would be there, but she was slightly apprehensive about facing them all again.

Not that they would realize why she was embarrassed.

Or even that she was embarrassed.

But really, she wondered idly as she stalled actually entering the house, what had she expected when she first allowed herself to be dragged into the group? She knew what they were like.

Or, at least, she thought she had.

Self-important and self-absorbed, mean-spirited, mocking, callous, materialistic…

Tess and her friends were certainly all of those. But in the past few days, Isabel had come to realize that they were also true friends to each other. Kind. Caring. Even sometimes… sweet.

Now that was an adjective she never thought she would use in the same thought as Tess.

It would be easier to excuse what had happened at lunch if she could just demonize the entire group. If she could just… if they could just be cold and unfeeling. But she had seen them as great friends too, and now…

She wondered if Liz would tell Max. She wondered what Max would say if he heard the story.

_Isabel was only half-listening to the conversations at her table as she stared around the quad. Sara was talking to Cliff about something, and Kyle was talking with Jessica. A few guys she didn't really know had joined them. She recognized them as jocks from the football teams, friends of Kyle's. _

_She could tell by the preoccupied look in Tess' slightly glazed over eyes that she wasn't the only one not paying attention. There was too much to think about._

_Fortunately, no one noticed her wandering thoughts. Kyle was still enraged at Jason, and Tess was still not speaking to Kyle, making the lunch conversation tense. There were too many other problems in the group for anyone to really pay attention to her lack of enthusiasm for the conversations._

"…_even Liz Parker would have been better."_

_Both Isabel and Tess looked up at the sound of Jessica's angry voice. The conversation instantly quieted, and all eyes spun to look at Kyle._

"_You want me to ask Liz Parker out on a date again?" Kyle asked skeptically, rolling his eyes._

_Jessica gave a thin-lipped smile and replied, "Of course not. My point was merely that you were a much better friend when you were dating Liz than when you were dating Pam."_

"_I'm not dating her anymore," Kyle replied. His eyes moved from Jessica to Tess, and he said softly, "I didn't realize I needed your permission to be friends with people."_

_Tess didn't take the bait. She simply flashed a smile and leaned back in her seat._

_Unfortunately, that did nothing to ease the rapidly growing tension. _

_Sara glanced from Tess to Kyle and then said softly, "Jessica, you really shouldn't tell him things like that. He might get the wrong idea and actually ask Liz out on a date. And then we are going to have to put up with her for however long it takes him to come to his senses again." Her eyes were filled with laughter, but it was the harsh, mocking kind._

"_True," Jessica replied with a nod. "Kyle never did have the best taste in girls."_

"_Well, you girls don't always seem to have the best taste in guys," Kyle shot back, biting his lip to keep from smiling. He slanted a look at Sara. "I mean, I never really understood what you saw in Cliff…"_

_Cliff hit Kyle on the arm and Kyle winced in mock pain. The other laughed, and the tension eased a little._

"_Speak of the devil," Chris warned, nodding his head towards an approaching figure._

_As one, the entire group turned. Liz was approaching nervously, and as she neared the others, she gave a hesitant grin. "Isabel? Have you seen Max?"_

"_No, I haven't," Isabel replied with an apologetic shrug. "You should ask Michael."_

"_I don't know where Michael is," Liz replied diffidently._

"_Of, did you lose track of your worshipers?" Sara asked with a laugh._

_Tess, who had been in the middle of taking a sip of water, burst into laughter and started choking. After she had managed to successfully swallow the water, she glanced over at Liz and said, "Worshiper… now that is an adequate description of Max, don't you think?"_

_Liz flushed. "We're just friends…um, I mean… well…" She stumbled over the words, and Isabel thought suddenly that Liz seemed very uncomfortable talking about Max. Just how much of a problem were the two of them having?_

"_Speaking of girls who don't have good taste in guys," Jessica murmured, shaking her head._

"_I know," Cliff declared. "I mean, she actually was crazy enough to date Kyle…" He ducked quickly as Kyle aimed a milk carton at him. The carton passed over his head, but Kyle still managed to punch him in the arm._

_Liz shot a helpless look at Isabel. Isabel hesitated, not really sure what to do. She glanced away and found Tess staring at her with a scrutinizing gaze. Heat suffused her face, and she looked down at her lunch._

"_If you're waiting for us to spontaneously produce Max's location, you're going to be standing there a long time," Tess said pointedly, giving Liz an exasperated look._

_Liz apparently came to her senses and quickly nodded, turned, and walked away. Isabel watched her go, and wondered why Liz would have even come to them in the first place. She should have known by now that it was a bad idea to approach Tess and her friends. Or had something happened, and had she really needed to find Max that desperately?_

_By the time Isabel turned her attention back to her 'friends,' they were already talking about something else._

Isabel ran a hand through her hair and sighed. They hadn't even been that mean to Liz, barely taunting her, and the girl had seemed so flustered and unsure.

But Liz had spoken to Max after school, and she obviously hadn't told him what had happened at lunch. Was she too caught up in the need to tell him about Alex's suspicions? Or was she honestly not planning on mentioning it at all?

And why did Isabel even care? So what if Max knew?

Why was she so embarrassed about having done nothing? It wasn't like she could really jump to Liz's defense and tell everyone to give her a break.

Tess had seen Isabel's discomfort. Tess was the only one out of the group who knew that Isabel had wanted to defend Liz.

No one else would even understand why she was embarrassed about what had happened at lunch.

* * *

Liz removed her antenna headband and carefully smoothed her hair. Work had been long, as usual, but today it seemed even longer. She couldn't stop thinking about Max. They had spoken very briefly at the end of the day, and she could sense that he had wanted to say something else to her, but hadn't been able to. She knew he wanted to talk about their relationship, and she wanted to talk about it also. She just wasn't sure what she wanted to say.

The door to the backroom swung open, and Liz turned in surprise to see Max standing there, staring at her nervously.

"Hey," he said slowly, shifting from one foot to the other. "I thought I'd stop by… I told Michael I'd look at apartments with him later and he said to meet here…"

Liz nodded. "Michael is upstairs, talking to my father about working as a cook here." Liz glanced towards the stairs. She was glad her father would be able to do something to help Michael, and she knew it would be a relief to everyone once Michael had a job and an apartment.

"Maria said you were back here," Max continued with a shrug as he followed her gaze towards the stairs. Then he turned and looked back at her, and their eyes met for a moment.

"I just got off work," Liz replied, gesturing to her carefully folded uniform on the counter next to her. She looked away abruptly and pulled her hair into a ponytail, thankful to have something to do besides stare at Max. "What's up?" she continued casually.

"I wanted to talk to you," Max said, slowly inhaling and exhaling as he watched her.

"About what?" Liz questioned as she glanced back at him over her shoulder.

"Us."

There was silence in the room as the two of them stared at each other. Max bit the inside of his mouth to keep from yelling at Liz to at least say something in response to his statement, and Liz stared at the ground so that she wouldn't have to meet her boyfriend's eyes.

"I just want to be able to fix whatever is wrong," Max pressed when Liz didn't say anything. "I… Liz, I want to be with you."

Liz offered a small smile. "I want to be with you too," she breathed.

Max crossed his arms over his chest. "Do you?" he asked, unsure. "Do you really want to be with me, or do you just want to be with Max Evans, student at Roswell High?" He walked over to her until they were standing only inches apart. Liz backed up against the wall behind her and looked up at Max, her brown eyes wide with concern and uncertainty. "Because I don't know anymore."

"Max, I like you. All of you. But I… I just want… sometimes I want you to be my boyfriend before being Michael and Isabel… and Tess' friend," Liz replied honestly, struggling to explain exactly what she meant. "Every now and then, I want… well, I don't want to keep taking second place to this… Czechoslovakian problem."

"You don't," Max whispered, leaning in and running his fingers across her face. Liz closed her eyes, and Max kissed her.

"_Ava… no, no, no, Ava, please… Oh, God… Ava, no… NO!"_

"_Zan, get back here! It's not safe."_

_The sound of gunfire filled the air and smoke twisted in great columns, racing towards the sky. The ground was covered with blood which ran in rivulets and pooled together. People were dying everywhere, and the wind carried the screams and moans of the wounded…_

"Liz? Liz!"

Liz opened her eyes to find herself collapsed in Max's arms. He was staring at her in concern, attempting with one hand to keep her upright while trying to shake her awake with the other.

"I'm okay," she whispered, trying to see through the haze and fog that clouded her mind.

"Liz, what happened?" Max asked, carefully setting her on the floor and kneeling next to her.

"I had a flash," Liz replied, trying to work out the details in her mind. "I… I heard voices again, but this time… I think I understood them." She looked up at Max, her face pale. "You and Tess were in a battle… or maybe it was right after the battle had finished… and Tess… she died…"

Max's arms tightened around Liz at those words, but he did not interrupt.

"You were screaming… you called her… you called her Ava." Liz shook her head. She still felt nauseated from the smell of blood, and even though she knew she hadn't really been there, she couldn't help but gag slightly as she recalled the flash. "You were crying, trying to go to her, but Michael was there, and he wouldn't let you. He said it wasn't safe. He called you… Zan."

"Did you see what we looked like?" Max asked. He remembered in her other flashes she had never been able to see them, but he was still curious.

Liz shook her head. "No, it was more like I felt everything. You were scared and devastated, and Tess was in so much pain, and Michael was trying to save you."

Max pushed a few strands of hair away and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "It happened a long time ago, Liz. Don't think about it. It's not happening now."

Liz nodded slowly. "It's always going to be there, though, isn't it?" she murmured, leaning back against the wall and staring at Max.

"What?" Max asked, tilting his head to one side in confusion.

"This other part of you," Liz replied wearily. "We kiss, and what should have been a kiss between a girl and her boyfriend turns into a clue to your past. It's not just… it's not just something that can be mine. I have to share it with everyone else because it…" She stopped, unsure if she could really finish her thought.

Max leaned back on his heels and nodded slowly. "Yes," he said bluntly. "This other part of me is always going to be there."

Liz flinched at the hardness to his words.

Max sighed and said in a softer voice, "Liz, I love you. I love you so much, and if I could split myself into two different people so that you wouldn't always have to deal with this Czechoslovakian stuff, I would. But I can't do that."

Liz chuckled darkly and replied, "Yeah, I've noticed."

Max shifted so that he was sitting on the floor next to Liz. They were both silent for a moment, thinking about everything that had happened.

"I love you," Max said suddenly. Liz stiffened and twisted to stare at him in surprise. "I love you, and I know that I haven't been a very good boyfriend lately. I wish I could somehow make this better for you. But this other part of me is always going to be there, and I can't help it. And I am so scared of everything that could happen if I mess up even the tiniest bit. That's why I've been taking you for granted, Liz, because even if we get into an argument I know the world won't end. And I know it's wrong. I just… you were the only person… around you, I could be me. Not Max Evans, alien. Not Max Evans, high school student. Both and neither. Just… just me."

Liz felt the tears prick at her eyes and turned away. She drew a breath, wiping at the tears and wondering what she was supposed to say next.

Then she felt Max's hand on her face, pulling her around so that they were looking at each other. She could feel his breath on her face. Max moved closer, his lips brushing against hers, and she felt a rush of emotion.

Fear. Frustration. Hopelessness. Anger. Desperation. Happiness. Love.

Max's emotions.

He was sending them to her, and they swirled around her mind in a rush of colors and thoughts, so strong and intense that she couldn't separate them out from her own feelings, and for a moment she was caught up in the whirlwind.

Then Max pulled back, and she opened her eyes as the feelings faded away.

"I promise I am trying to be the boyfriend you want. But I might not succeed at it. I'm just me, and I'm not normal. And I don't have anything else to offer you." Max stood up and left Liz alone, sitting on the floor of the back room of the diner, lost her in her own thoughts.

* * *

"This is it," Michael announced, looking around the apartment. "This is where I want to live."

"It's… nice," Max agreed with a nod of his head. The apartment had a living room, a kitchen, a bedroom, and a bathroom. The rent was not unreasonable, and it was close enough to school that Michael wouldn't need a car.

Michael raised an eyebrow at Max's hesitancy and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Max lied. He had promised Michael that he would help look at apartments, but his mind was still constantly wandering back to Liz. He wondered what she was thinking and what she was going to do. He'd done the best he could, and the choice was now hers to make.

Michael eyed Max warily, but decided to say nothing.

Max forced a change in conversation, "How'd the conversation with Mr. Parker go?"

"It went well," Michael replied. "He offered to let me start tomorrow." He paused for a moment, giving the apartment one last look, then said, "It was a good idea of Sean's to look for a job here."

"It was Maria's father's idea?" Max asked in surprise. At Michael's affirmative nod, Max said thoughtfully, "Maybe he's not that bad after all."

Michael sighed in frustration. He wished he knew what it was about Sean that bothered him so much. Maybe he was just being overprotective of Maria, but if something actually was wrong… he didn't want her to get hurt.

* * *

"Michael found an apartment and a job," Max announced as he walked into Isabel's room.

She glanced up at him from her desk and smiled in relief. "That's great," she replied. "Where is he working?"

Max grinned. "The Crashdown," he replied, and Isabel started in shock. Then she too smiled and Max laughed. "Mr. Parker gave him a job as a cook. I think both Liz and Maria put in a good word for him."

Isabel shifted slightly, uncomfortable at the mention of Liz.

Max noted her change in expression and debated asking her about it, but decided that a direct question would put her on guard. Instead, he asked casually, "How was your afternoon?"

"It was fun," Isabel replied. "I met some of Kyle's friends from the football team and we watched TV and hung out and talked…" She let the sentence drift, and Max had the distinct impression that there was something else she wanted to say. But she didn't say anything, just stared blankly down at the book she had been reading.

"I never had you pegged as the popular type," Max commented dryly.

"I never wanted to be the popular type," Isabel mused.

"Are you okay?" Max asked softly, his eyes filled with concern as he watched her. He took a seat on her bed, and Isabel spun around in the chair to face him. She was staring at him with a curious expression on her face, as though she couldn't quite figure out what she wanted to tell him, or if she even wanted to say anything at all.

"I'm just confused," Isabel said at last. "It's nothing big."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Max asked.

"I don't know what I'd say," Isabel replied slowly, bitterly. She got up, stepping away from her desk and walking over to the window. Through the slightly dirty glass, she could see the silent street and the perfectly manicured lawn.

"Did something happen?" Max pressed curiously. "Did you get into a fight with someone? Michael? Tess? Alex?"

Isabel turned sharply at the sound of Alex's name. Hot guilt bubbled in her stomach as she realized she'd barely even thought about him since Homecoming. She'd gone out of her way to make him jealous, and then just ignored him.

Did she like Alex?

Yes, she thought to herself, she certainly liked him. He was sweet and funny and a good friend. She really wouldn't fine a nicer guy than him, and she knew that he was interested in her as well. Yes, she liked him.

But then why was she so reluctant to imagine herself dating him?

Because she knew exactly what her new friends would say to that particular idea.

"You know when we used to have all those arguments with Tess about whether she abandoned us or we abandoned her?" Isabel said at last.

Max shrugged with an ironic grin. "Sure," he replied. "We've had a reprieve from them lately, but my guess is she's going to start that argument again sometime soon." He shook his head in mock despair and Isabel smiled slightly.

"I get why she wants to be popular," Isabel said at last. "I understand why it was important to her, why she decided to chose that path instead of staying friends with us."

Max frowned, raising one eyebrow. "Really?" he asked skeptically. "Because I have to admit, I don't see a good reason for turning your back on your friends just to pursue the limelight."

"She never truly turned her back on us," Isabel defended Tess. "She's always there when we need her." In truth, she harbored just as much resentment about Tess' choice as Max did. But she felt the need to defend the fourth alien because she could see herself making that same decision some time in the future.

And Max seemed to guess what she was thinking and asked softly, almost sadly, "Are you joining Tess' group?"

Isabel walked over to the bed and sank onto the mattress next to Max. She wasn't sure what she was going to do, but she needed Max to understand how much of a struggle this was for her. "Max, for the first time in my life, when people pay attention to me, it isn't a bad thing. I've spent so long trying to hide, and now… now I can be the center of attention and not have to worry about ending up as a governmental lab rat. Guys flirt with me, and I don't need to second guess their motives. People talk about me at school, and I don't need to worry that they're revealing my secret. I get to be noticed." She shook her head slowly and looked away. "I never realized how important that was to me until now."

"Why is it so important?" Max asked in frustration. "Who cares if every guy in the school swoons when you walk by or not?"

"I'm tired of hiding, Max. I'm tired of everything in my life revolving around this secret. I want to be more than just Isabel Evans, alien," Isabel replied softly, looking away from Max. She stared at the blank wall across the room for a moment, then closed her eyes. "I know we are always going to have to hide. We're always going to have to try to blend in, to not be noticed. Just once in my life, I'd like to stand out."

"If you really want that so much, then what's the problem?" Max questioned. "Tess is giving you the chance to stand out. You should be happy."

Isabel gave a dark chuckle. "The problem is that I haven't thought about Alex at all lately because I know that no matter how much I like him, Tess, Sara, and Jessica would never let me live it down if we started dating. The problem is that I watch them make fun of the less popular people, and I don't do anything about it. The problem is that I'm turning into someone I don't want to be, and I don't know how to stop it."

Max considered this for a moment, then asked, "What do you want me to say?"

Isabel gave him a scrutinizing look. Finally, she replied, "What do you want to say?"

"You're my sister. I love you. Nothing you do will ever change that," Max answered honestly. "And yes, I do understand why you want to stand out. And yes, it is something that I've wanted before as well. And yes, I get why you're reluctant to truly be friends with the popular group. And no matter what you do, I'll still love you."

* * *

Next Chapter: Enemy Unseen

Due: Now


	60. Enemy Unseen

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: IMPORTANT! I posted two chapters at this update. So if you have not read the previous chapter (_Just Me_), you might want to do that first.

* * *

Chapter Fifty-Nine: Enemy Unseen

Amy swung her feet over the side of the bed and gingerly shifted her weight until she was standing. She took a few experimental steps, wobbling slightly on legs she hadn't used in a long time, before the exertion got to be too much, and she stumbled.

The nurse moved forward instantly, catching her easily and keeping her from falling, then helping her slowly back to the bed.

"You'll need a bit of physical therapy, Ms. DeLuca," the nurse said thoughtfully, "but you're lucky nothing's permanently damaged. You should be right as rain in a few days, I'd imagine."

Amy smiled her thanks, then asked tentatively, "Who's my doctor now? I mean… since Dr. Drake… left?"

"Well… I'd imagine Dr. Greene or Dr. Ruebens," the nurse replied after a moment's hesitation. Drake's departure had taken everyone by surprise, and the hospital hadn't quite managed to assign doctors to every patient yet.

"Okay," Amy replied, shrugging, and then wincing as the movement caused a spasm of pain.

"Careful," the nurse admonished with a quick smile. "You're neck is still recovery, it took a pretty nasty impact in that crash. No sudden movements, and don't twist your neck too much, okay?"

Amy sighed. "Yeah," she murmured, more to herself than to anyone else. She was growing tired of being an invalid, and was quite anxious to rejoin the real world. But her body still ached, and those aches reminded her that she'd have to be careful if she wanted to have a full recovery.

The door to the room slowly swung open, and a head poked around the corner.

"Jim?" Amy asked, surprised to see the Sheriff.

"Is this a bad time?" Jim asked apologetically. "I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop by to see how you were doing…"

"No, it's fine, come on in," Amy said slowly, gesturing for Jim to take a seat in the chair near the bed. The nurse, sensing that the two wanted to be alone, quickly left the room.

Jim sat down, somewhat awkwardly, and regarded Amy intently. "How are you feeling?" he asked at last.

"I'm doing much better," Amy answered with a small smile. "I was able to take a few steps today." She said it proudly, the way a mother might gush over her toddler's first steps.

"That's wonderful," Jim replied warmly.

There was silence, and Jim stared down at the white-washed floor. Amy leaned back against the pillows and stared up at the ceiling.

"So… I take it Maria and… um, Sean… aren't here today?" Jim asked at last, his words sticking slightly in his throat as he gazed sharply at Amy.

For a moment, Amy didn't answer. Then she said in a sad tone, "Maria doesn't stop by much…" Realizing abruptly how petty that sounded, she hurriedly amended, "I mean, she is here frequently. I guess I just get bored because she's one of the few who come." She paused, then murmured in a low voice, "I'm worried about her."

"I know this has been difficult for her," Jim agreed quickly. "But she seems to be managing. And she'll be pleased that you are recovering so well."

Amy nodded slowly, thinking to herself that Jim didn't know anything about what was actually bothering Maria, and if he did, he might not be so quick to say that she was managing well.

There were a lot of things Jim didn't know, things he had a right to know. Especially about Sean. Finally, Amy ran a hand through her hair and said firmly, "We need to talk, don't we?"

Jim gave a tight smile and replied seriously, "Yes, I think we do."

* * *

The patient started to spasm, his lungs gasping for breath as his heart rate flat-lined. The resident stood, frozen in dismay, staring at the dying patient, unable to think. Thoughts kept flashing through her mind, memories of lectures in school and sentence from text books she had read, but they hardly made sense to her confused and panicked mind. She was young, barely out of medical school, and in over her head.

"What's going on, Dr. Porter?"

The young resident turned as the door was flung open and a more senior doctor strode into the room.

"He's coding, Dr. Greene," she managed to gasp out, still rooted to the same spot. She gestured helplessly to the struggling patient, unable to do anything else.

"Why are you just standing there?" Dr. Greene barked, clearly furious. "Move!" He shoved her roughly to the side and leaned over the patient. "I need an oxygen mask on this man!" he ordered.

Dr. Porter nodded, and stepped towards the oxygen tank near the head of the bed. Her hands fumbled as attempted to slip the mask over the mouth and nose of the shaking patient.

"Charge the paddles!"

Dr. Porter nodded just as several nurses flooded into the room. The activity around her increased rapidly, and she stepped back, letting everyone else work. Her senses weren't functioning properly, her hearing was muffled and the room seemed to blur occasionally, fading in and out of her muddled vision.

"Clear!"

The shout penetrated the fog around her mind and she turned in time to see Dr. Greene plunge the charged paddles onto the patients chest. A burst of electricity…

But the heartbeat was still flat-lining.

"Again! Clear!"

She felt suddenly sick. Her mother had always told her she'd make a lousy doctor, she just didn't have the determination and stamina in her. Perhaps she should have listened to those words of caution. Her stomach twisted painfully, and she had to bite down hard on her lip to keep from sobbing.

The patient was dying.

"Clear!"

It came in a sudden flash of realization. She knew before anyone else in the room did. She knew before they had given up on him. The patient was already as good as gone. They weren't going to save him.

"Dr. Porter? Dr. Porter?"

She snapped her head up, looking over at the doctor who was yelling at her, trying to get her attention. She looked around the room. The nurses had stepped away from the patient, and the doctor was no longer holding the paddles. The patient was still and pale, an ashen gray spreading across his skin.

"Yes, Dr. Greene?" she managed to reply at last.

"What did you give him?" Dr. Greene asked, nodding to the syringe on the table near the bed.

Dr. Porter frowned, trying to think. Before the patient had gone into convulsions, she had been giving him an injection. What was it?

"Morphine," she said at last as her memory finally kicked in. "He was supposed to have another shot of morphine because of the pain." Dr. Greene was eyeing her with a look in his eyes that she didn't quite like, and she continued defensively, "Dr. Ruebens told me to do it."

Dr. Greene snatched the patient's chart from the foot of the bed and flipped through it. He paused on one of the pages and held it out to the other doctor. "Can you read this for me?" he asked, his tone dripping with sarcasm as he pointed to a line halfway down the page.

Dr. Porter took the chart with shaking hands and glanced at the line. She read it once, her eyes widening in horror. She read it again, then stared up at Dr. Greene. "I…" she faltered, unsure of what to say. "I didn't…"

"Read the sentence out loud," Dr. Greene instructed.

Dr. Porter swallowed nervously and glanced at the nurses in the room, as though hoping one of them would come to her defense. No one said anything, and she looked back down at the page. "Patient is allergic…" she whispered.

"Louder," Dr. Greene snapped. "So that we can hear you."

"Patient is allergic to… morphine… Severe reaction… can cause… death," she forced the words out slowly, haltingly. How could she have made a mistake like this? She had killed a man!

But even as soon as she thought that, another idea came to mind. Dr. Ruebens had told her to administer the morphine. Why would he have done that unless he himself hadn't known about the allergy? It didn't make any sense.

"Dr. Ruebens told me to give him the pain killer," she said, staring at Dr. Greene. "He told me to, I was just following his instructions."

Dr. Greene rolled his eyes. "I highly doubt that Dr. Ruebens told you to inject morphine into the patient, especially since he has spent the entire morning in my office discussing our response to Dr. Drake's disappearance," he retorted. Honestly, why couldn't the doctor just take responsibility for her own actions instead of trying to blame someone else? This argument was just a waste of everyone's time. "And even if he had told you to, you still should have known enough about this patient to know not to give him morphine."

Dr. Porter shook her head in denial. "No, Dr. Ruebens told me to… He can't have been in the office with you… I saw him. I _know_ I did."

"Don't lie, it won't help your case," Dr. Greene admonished angrily. "You just killed a man." He glanced at the dead body lying on the bed. "Fill out the paperwork and declare the time of death," he ordered. Then he turned cold eyes to the young doctor. "Then get yourself down to the legal department, you're going to need malpractice advice. And I'd prepare for being put on probation if I were you." Without another word, he turned around and stalked from the room.

The nurses quickly filed out behind him, and Dr. Porter stared down at the patient. She was still in shock, still unable to completely comprehend what had happened. She knew what Dr. Greene had said, but it was impossible. She had seen Dr. Ruebens, he had given her instructions. He couldn't have been in Dr. Greene's office the entire morning, he just couldn't have…

Slowly, she ran her hand over the front of the patient's chart, reading the words.

_Name of Patient: Hank Guerin._

* * *

Dr. Ruebens watched silently as Dr. Greene and the nurses filed out of the patient's room. Hidden from view behind a rack of lab coats, he smiled quietly, pleased with himself. Obviously the hapless doctor had believed his instructions and had administered the morphine accordingly.

Everything had gone perfectly.

And, of course, it had helped that he knew the real Dr. Ruebens was going to be in his coworker's office the entire morning and would therefore be conveniently out of the way.

One less threat to worry about.

He shifted quickly back into Sean, gave Dr. Greene and the nurses one last satisfied look, and walked away.

* * *

The teacher glanced up in surprise as the door to the classroom opened. It was a little over halfway through the class period, and he had been droning on about the symbolism found in Hamlet while the majority of the class fell into a dreary stupor. People shifted in their seats, blinking in confusion at the unusual sight of someone actually interrupting class.

It was one of the secretaries. She gave the teacher an apologetic smile and said, "I'm so sorry to interrupt, but I need to speak to Mr. Guerin for a moment?" She glanced through the class until her eyes landed on Michael. "You're need in the office, Michael. I'm sure it won't take long."

Michael shrugged and stood up, inwardly pleased at a chance to escape the complete boredom of the lecture. He shot a sideways glance at Isabel, who was staring longingly at the door as though she wished it had been her name called and not his. She gave him a jealous smile, and he smirked at her as he left the room.

"What's going on?" Michael asked as he followed the office secretary down the hallway.

His question was answered when Sheriff Valenti walked out of the office and greeted Michael with a serious, "Hello, Mr. Guerin. I'm afraid I have bad news."

Michael felt his stomach clench. Had something happened to Max? He knew Isabel was fine, but what about Tess? Or…oh, God… Maria? Or Liz or Alex? Amy?

"What?" he asked, and was surprised to find that his voice did not shake.

"It's Hank Guerin…" Sheriff Valenti watched the confusion cloud Michael's eyes. "He passed away earlier this morning. There was an accident in some medication… pain-killer, actually… he was allergic…"

Michael wasn't listening anymore. The only thing that registered was the Hank Guerin was dead.

* * *

"How about we have a girls' night?" Liz suggested, leaning against the wall and smiling at Maria. "You, me, Alex, movies and junk food."

"Alex's not a girl," Maria replied dryly, glancing around the hallway. Michael had called her last night to tell her that he had found an apartment and if she wanted she could stop by to look at it after school and give her opinion. She had hoped to see him at some point during school, but it was already after lunch, and she hadn't run into her taciturn boyfriend once.

"He's an honorary girl," Liz declared, noting Maria's wandering attention. With a knowing smirk, she asked, "Looking for Michael?"

Maria flushed. "Yes. No. I don't know," she muttered. Liz was grinning widely, and Maria hissed, "I'm telling Alex you think he's a girl!"

"You think what?"

Liz and Maria both jumped at the outraged demand, and spun around to see Alex standing next to them. His eyes pinned Liz in a mock-furious stare.

"You think I'm a _girl_?"

"I said you were an honorary girl," Liz defended herself, shooting an annoyed look at Maria who was now laughing. "We're having a girls' night, and you're invited because you're an honorary girl."

"I'm flattered," Alex drawled. "Why the girls' night?"

"Well, we haven't done much with just the three of us in a while and I thought it would be nice," Liz replied with a shrug. "Are you guys free?"

"Maybe," Maria replied, thinking. "Well, I think I'm supposed to go see an apartment with Michael after school, and then we both have work at the Crashdown, but maybe afterwards… Oh, wait, it's Michael's first day of work so I thought maybe we could have a celebratory dinner together. Him and me." She paused and asked thoughtfully, "Do you think that's pushing it too much?"

"No," Liz said.

"Yes," Alex objected at the same time.

Liz frowned at Alex. "I think it's sweet," she said.

"And since when has Michael been a fan of sweet?" Alex replied pointedly. He was about to argue further when his phone rang. Sighing, he reached for it and stared at the number. It wasn't one he recognized. Who would be calling him on his cell phone in the middle of the day?

He shrugged to himself and answered.

"Hello?"

"Ms. Topolski didn't leave of her own volition."

Alex froze. "What?" he breathed, confused. "Wait, who is this?"

Both Maria and Liz looked at him sharply, then Liz leaned in and placed her ear next to the phone so that she could hear the conversation as well.

"She left because she had to. She was running. The FBI knows that you know who she is, and they've turned on her. Pierce turned on her."

"What do you mean?" Alex demanded, lowering his voice and glancing at Liz with stricken features. "Who's Pierce? And who are you?"

"Pierce is the head of the Special Unit. They're the ones after you. He's smart, kid, and he's dangerous. Be careful, he's closer than you think." There was a pause. "Oh, and tell your foster-kid friend that I took care of his problem. Hank Guerin won't be an issue anymore."

"What did you do?" Alex questioned, feeling unsettled and worried. Next to him, Liz sucked in a sharp breath.

"I took care of a threat," came the smooth reply.

"Who are you?" Alex hissed again.

"A friend." The line went dead.

Alex hung up the phone and glanced at Liz. Liz was staring at the floor, lost in thought. Maria was shifting her weight from one foot to the other, clearly unsure what to do next.

Finally Liz spoke up. "I'm going to tell Max about this." She turned to walk away, then suddenly stopped and caught Alex by the shoulders, pulling him into a tight hug.

"Liz…?"

"Be careful," Liz murmured. "Whoever that was, he knows how to contact you. He knows who you are. Be careful."

* * *

Next Chapter: Contact

Due: Sun 1/21


	61. Contact

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: _Italics _are dreams. This chapter is pretty focused on the aliens, but the next chapter will deal more with the humans and their response to the phone call Alex recieved and everything else that is going on.

* * *

Chapter Sixty: Contact

_Isabel wrapped her arms around Michael and leaned into his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeats. The sand beneath her bare feet was warm, but the breeze that rustled through her hair was cool and gentle. Michael's arms tightened around her, and she couldn't help but think that there was nothing in life better than this moment._

_The Michael pulled back from her and looked up towards the sky. She followed his gaze, and frowned as she noticed the dark gray clouds slowly drifting across the brilliant blue sky._

"_Do you think it's going to rain?" she asked softly._

"_It always rains and the wrong times," Michael replied, pulling her into him again. "Come on, let's get somewhere safe." He turned and started walking towards the cliffs, but Isabel hesitated, some sixth sense pulling her back. "Isabel?" he questioned, concerned._

"_I don't know…" Isabel shook her head slowly, uneasily. She glanced away from Michael, towards the desert that surrounded them. Something was troubling her, something she couldn't understand._

_Sighing, she turned back towards Michael, intent on telling him that everything was fine, but the words died on her lips._

_The man standing there was not Michael._

_He was tall, with smoky gray eyes and pale skin. His dark hair fell nearly to his eyes, and his lips were parted in a thin smirk._

"_Princess," he mocked casually, grabbing Isabel by the wrists as she tried to back away. He had the same harsh, grating voice that Isabel recognized from the earlier phone call._

"_Who are you?" Isabel breathed, panic filling her chest, causing her heart to beat at a rapid crescendo._

"_Who do you want me to be?" the man shot back, and suddenly his appearance changed, shifting into that of a young woman. Red waves of hair cascaded over white skin with a smattering of freckles. Green eyes laughed with a cold triumph and he released Isabel's arms._

"_I… How did you…?" Isabel stammered, terrified._

_The woman gave a slight shrug and asked, "Or would you prefer someone more familiar?" And her shape changed yet again, her features smoothly morphing into the distinguished peppered hair and kind brown eyes of Mr. Evans._

"_What are you?" Isabel spat, shaken at seeing her own father staring back at her with a sneer. "What do you want? Are you responsible for these dreams?" she asked, gesturing to the desert around her. "Are you the one who killed Tess' parents? Why are you here?"_

_At that, the shape-shifter stopped, surprised. "Tess?" he echoed. "I… the Queen?" His words were so soft that Isabel could barely hear them. His face was fixed in an expression of thoughtful confusion as he considered the information Isabel had imparted._

_Isabel hesitated, staring at the man in front of her. He seemed… untrustworthy. But at the same time, he didn't seem like an enemy. She wasn't sure what he wanted, and she knew she couldn't take anything he said on face value, but she also couldn't shake the feeling that she had known him before, in some other life. And he hadn't been an enemy then._

"_You didn't answer my questions," she said at last._

_The shape-shifter nodded, raising an eyebrow suspiciously. Isabel was struck by how strange the expression looked on her father's face. Her father never looked at her like that, like he didn't quite know if he could trust her. She shook her head and wished the shape-shifter would take a different shape._

"_What am I? I'm a friend," the shape-shifter replied at last. "Am I responsible for these dreams? No, these are merely reminders of what once was, and what is meant to be. What do I want? To help you. Did I kill your friend's parents? No, I did not. And why am I here? I am here because I can help you. You're in more danger than you realize."_

"_I think we realize how much danger we are in," Isabel replied, rolling her eyes._

"_No," the man replied, reaching out and catching Isabel's elbow in a crushing grip. "I really don't think you do."_

Isabel awoke with a start, staring around wildly before she could convince herself that this was nothing more than a dream. She was safe in her own room, safe in her bed under the warm blankets. But the unease and fear was there, and refused to leave her.

* * *

Sean slammed his hand onto the table in his hotel room. He was angry, frustrated, and tired. The Princess had awoken before he had had the chance to truly speak to her. He knew she didn't trust him, none of them did, but he hoped he was getting closer. Sooner or later a chance would present itself were he could show that he was on their side. Once they trusted him… 

Still, the conversation with the Princess had given him something to think about. Although he knew little about the Royal Four's lives for the past ten years, he had been able to discern that the Queen had not always been with the group. Until now, he wasn't sure where she had been, or why she had finally ended up in Roswell.

But if her original parents were killed by aliens, then it was likely that he wasn't the only extraterrestrial who had wanted to locate the missing rulers of Antar. He had to be careful, had to keep his eyes and ears open. They were in more danger than even he had originally realized.

Max paced back and forth across the length of his room. It was past midnight, and his parents and sister had long since gone to bed. Although he too had tried to fall asleep, he had been unable. Rest evaded him, and midnight found him wide awake and worried.

Liz had come to see him that afternoon after school got out. She stumbled through a flustered explanation of the call Alex had received, and then turned and hurried away before Max had had the chance to press for details. Conversations between the two were awkward now, and there was little that Max could think of that would change the situation. He'd told Liz how he felt, told her the truth, and the ball was now in her court.

Waiting for her decision was not easy, though.

Neither was dealing with his concern about Isabel. Although he had meant what he said when he told her that he would love her regardless of who she decided to be friends with, he was not thrilled about the idea of her turning into another version of Tess. Still, he supposed he could understand why she liked being able to be noticed for once. They were all tired of hiding.

And then there was Michael and Hank. Hank Guerin was dead, and all charges would be dropped against Michael. That was a good thing, except that if Liz's story was correct, the death looked to be alien related.

Had the alien who contacted Alex really killed Hank as he had implied? Was it the same alien that contacted Isabel? And whose side was this mysterious stranger on anyway? Was he friend or foe?

The last thing they needed right now was another enemy, but Max wasn't willing to trust anyone else yet.

Sighing, the alien sat down at the computer and opened an internet page. He quickly typed the name Brody Davis into Google and pressed search. The man was responsible for more than one website about Atherton and the 'Four Square.' Who was he, and what did he know?

Max scanned the different sites that came up, but he froze as he stared at one of the links. He quickly opened the web page and found himself staring at an article from the New Mexico Herald. The newspaper had printed a story about Brody Davis, and how, only a few days ago, he had bought the abandoned UFO center in Roswell.

Brody Davis was coming to town.

That couldn't be a coincidence, could it? Max bit his lip nervously and considered the possible repercussions of this move. Why was Brody coming here? What was he after? And why now, after all this time? It had been years since the crash, years since Atherton had written his first book, years since the conspiracy theories had first started running wild throughout the state.

Why now?

Before he had a chance to think on the subject, however, the sound of footsteps in the hall caught his attention. Then there was a soft knock on the door, and it swung open to reveal Isabel's exhausted face.

"Izzy?" Max was on his feet in a heartbeat, worried. "Are you okay?"

Isabel shook her head worriedly. "It seems our resident alien caller is no longer content to just call," she said softly. "He's decided to make contact." At Max's shocked and apprehensive expression, she continued, "I had a dream…"

* * *

_Jim shoved some of the pages aside and momentarily rubbed his weary eyes. He shot a quick glance at young Tess, who was staring blankly out the window. Kyle had his head buried in the refrigerator, searching for food._

"_There's no hamburger," Kyle announced in a whiny tone, turning towards his father as though the Sheriff could somehow make hamburger magically appear._

"I know you're here," Tess murmured as she stared around her own dream. Her younger self was still staring out of the window, although she had stiffened slightly at Kyle's comment. Kyle was pouting, and Jim looked exasperated. But she knew she was not the only person watching her dream, she could sense the other presence. And she knew it wasn't Isabel.

"_I guess it all got eaten," Jim replied to his son. "There's some pasta." He seemed supremely unconcerned by Kyle's distress._

"_I don't want pasta, I want hamburger," little Kyle retorted. He spun towards Tess and demanded angrily, "Did you eat it?"_

"Stop playing games. You obviously want something, or you wouldn't have come back to my dream. Show yourself," Tess ordered.

"Very well," a cold voice replied, and a man stepped out of the shadows. He wore Mr. Evans' face, but Tess knew that he wasn't the kind lawyer. "If you are so determined to see me…" He gestured towards his body and continued, "Although I must regret to inform you that I won't be showing my true shape."

"What do you want?" Tess repeated. "Are you dream-walking? Do you have Isabel's power."

"I believe your friend refers to them as gifts," the shape-shifter replied pointedly. "And, to answer your question, I have a form of the Princess' gift. Not quite the same, but rather close."

"_You ate it!" Kyle cried, his face screwed up in fury. "Daddy, Tess ate the hamburger that I wanted!"_

"_Well, we can get hamburger later," Jim replied with a dismissive tone. "Right now you can have the pasta." He didn't even bother looking up at his son._

Tess didn't say anything. She was torn between curiosity about why this man was here, and concern about how much he seemed to know about them, including Isabel's determination to call their abilities 'gifts.'

Finally, she asked again, "What do you want? Why do you keep coming to see me? To see this dream?"

"Why do you keep coming back to this dream?" the shape-shifter shot back, a twisted smirk appearing on Mr. Evans' usually gentle face. "You can control what you dream about, and you keep coming back here… over and over. What are you looking for?"

"_I hate you!" Kyle hissed, glaring at little Tess in a fury. "I wish you had never come here. You ruin everything!"_

_Little Tess looked back at him, tears pooling in her eyes. She was so focused on her own fears and hurts she barely heard Jim's reprimand. Instead, she blinked away the tears and closed her eyes tightly, trying to push out Kyle's harsh and thoughtless words. _

"Do you really think they won't figure out why you're here?" the shape-shifter asked softly. "Do you really think they won't discover the truth?"

"The truth," Tess spat, fury echoing in her words, "is that I am here because _someone_ murdered Andrew and Jessica." The accusation was plain in her words, but the shape-shifter did not flinch away from her harsh tone.

"It wasn't me," he murmured softly. "I didn't kill them."

Tess stared at him for a long time, wondering what to believe. For some reason she couldn't quite identify, she trusted his words. But she was still suspicious by nature, and that would never change. She said nothing and looked away.

_The phone rang, the loud noise cutting through the tense silence that had fallen over the kitchen. Jim looked slightly relieved by the interruption. It was clear that he had wanted to comfort Tess, but had had no idea of what to say._

_Jim stood and crossed the kitchen floor, grabbing the phone and answering quickly. "Hello?"_

"You're in danger," the shape-shifter said slowly, tearing his eyes away from Jim and glancing back at Tess. "A lot more than you realize."

"Whose side are you on?" Tess inquired skeptically, the suspicion clear in her voice.

"I'm trying to help you," the shape-shifter replied with a shrug.

"_I know, but we can't proceed without probable cause," Jim said in exasperation. "Regardless of what the complaints are, we don't have enough…" There was a silence as the person on the other end of the lines interrupted angrily,, then Jim asked curiously, "Is there any proof?" _

_Little Tess walked over to the table and sat down, folding her legs into a pretzel, her knees sticking out over the end of the chair. Kyle was still glaring at her, but she wasn't looking at him._

"_Fine, I will look into it a little. But really…" Jim let the sentence drift off and glanced over at little Tess. "I have a few other things on my mind at the moment as well, so I am rather busy."_

"What kind of danger are we in?" Tess asked slowly. She wasn't going to trust everything he said, but she also wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to glean any information.

"Agent Pierce," the shape-shifter breathed, his voice suddenly soft and diffident. "He's FBI, and he's much closer than you think."

"We know the FBI is close…" Tess started, but she was interrupted.

"You don't understand. Pierce is… different."

Realization dawned, and Tess' eyes widened in disbelief. "You're afraid of him?" she asked, but it wasn't really a question.

"_No, issues with Tess," Jim replied to the unheard question. "Tess Harding. Andrew's daughter. I have to…" Jim stopped and closed his eyes. "Your concerns are understandable, but there is nothing I can do at the moment. Call me again when you actually have something to go on." And he hung up._

"He's dangerous. Keep your eyes open," the shape-shifter warned. "And make sure to only trust the people who deserve it."

"And what have you done to deserve my trust?" Tess demanded quickly, her lips turning into a slight smirk. "Can we afford to trust someone we don't know?"

The shape-shifter shrugged again. "You have to many allies and not enough friends. Can you really afford not to trust me?"

* * *

Cynthia Drake tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear and glanced over at the door as the bell rang throughout the house. Glancing at the clock, Cynthia noted that it was only seven in the morning. She shook her head in confusion and crossed the room, pulling open the door. 

And stared in stunned silence at the man standing there.

"Nick," she stammered in surprise.

Nick Latcher offered a smile. "I'm sorry I didn't get here yesterday, Cynnie, but I was settling into the hotel."

Cynthia flushed at the sound of her nickname, tears coming to her eyes. She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Nick, pulling him into a tight embrace. "Nick," she managed to gasp out. "Oh, God, Nick…"

"Hey, Cynnie, come on, don't cry," Nick whispered, hugging her fiercely. As far as Cynthia knew, her husband was still alive, and had only abandoned her. He knew better. He was unsure if Drake was still alive, but it was unlikely, and he was going to have to tell her that.

Cynthia pulled back and smiled, wiping at her eyes. "I'm sorry, Nick, I'm being silly," she laughed softly, but the laughter did not reach her eyes.

"No, you're not," Nick said seriously, and Cynthia hesitated at the strange tone in his voice. It was almost as though he knew something she didn't, something bad.

"Nick?" she questioned.

"Are the children here?" Nick asked, glancing around the living room.

Cynthia shook her head. "No, they're still both asleep. They've been sleeping in a lot more since… well, since Justin… left." She glanced towards the stairs. "I think they don't want to face the empty house. He… he used to make them breakfast in the morning."

"We should step outside for a moment," Nick said, trying to force his voice to remain casual. "You should see the sunrise."

Cynthia raised an eyebrow. "The sun's already up," she pointed out, but Nick shook just shook his head and reached out with one hand towards her. She wanted to argue, but she didn't. Something in his eyes told her just to do what he said, and she nodded and stepped out onto the lawn.

Nick ran a hand through his hair and took a shaky breath. "Cynnie…" He stared into her eyes and murmured, "There's a lot going on here that you don't know anything about. You and your daughters… you might be in danger."

"What do you mean?" Cynthia asked, determined to believe that he was joking. There was no possible way that they could be in any danger. This was Roswell, nothing ever happened here.

"Justin stumbled into something he shouldn't have," Nick explained softly. Cynthia was staring at him with wide, teary eyes, and he would have given anything in the world to not have to finish the conversation. But he had to go on, had to tell her the truth. She deserved that much.

"I don't understand," Cynthia whispered, horrified as the truth began to dawn on her. Nick didn't think that Justin had left her, Nick thought that Justin had…

Oh, _God_.

"Cynthia, come on, you know Justin would never have just left you or the kids. He was crazy about the three of you. There was no way… There was no way he would have left you voluntarily," Nick explained, watching as realization and panic flashed through Cynthia's eyes.

"Nick?"

"Yeah?"

"Tell me everything."

Nick swallowed nervously and began speaking. "I don't know much, Cynnie, but I'll tell you what I can. It started with a kid, a patient of Justin's. Michael Guerin…"

* * *

The last thing Max ever expected to hear at seven-thirty in the morning on a Saturday morning was the sound of knuckles rapping against the glass of his window. Throwing the blanket away from him, he stood slowly and stretched. Rubbing his eyes, he walked over to the window and pulled away the curtains, fully expecting to find Michael standing there. 

But it was Tess.

He unlocked the window and she pulled herself into the room without waiting for an invitation. Max reflected briefly that it had been a long time since he had shown up at her window, and even longer she had shown up at his. That fact alone sent of alarm bells in his head, as did the worry reflected in her eyes.

"What happened?"

Tess licked dry lips and said, "I had a visitor in my dream."

"So did Isabel," Max muttered to himself. He walked over to the bed and sank onto the cushions, and Tess took a seat across from him on the chair next to his desk. He was silent for a moment, then asked, "Did you hear about Hank?"

Tess nodded. "I overheard Jim talking to someone on the phone about it." She hesitated, then asked diffidently, "How's Michael?"

Max shrugged. "My parents wanted him to spend the night here, but he insisted he was perfectly capable of moving into his new apartment, regardless of what had happened to Hank." He smiled bitterly and shook his head. Michael was, as usual, incapable of accepting help.

"Isabel told me about the phone call Alex received," Tess said cautiously. She knew how worried Isabel was about what had happened, after her own experience with the mysterious alien caller. She ran a hand through her hair and asked, "What did you mean about Isabel also having a visitor in her dream?"

Max let out a shaky breath. "Probably the same thing you meant when you said you had a visitor. The shape-shifter came to see her. Warned her that we are all in danger."

"Did he say anything specific?" Tess pressed. When Max shook his head, she sighed and continued, "He told me something. About… an FBI agent. Agent Pierce. We should be careful, he's closer than we realize."

"Did he say anything else?" Max questioned.

Tess hesitated, wondering how much she should actually reveal. Most of the conversation with the mysterious man was not something she wanted to repeat to Max, and it wasn't something that he really had to know anyway. So she carefully selected the parts she knew he needed to know, and explained.

"He said that Pierce is close, and that he is more dangerous than anyone else in the FBI. He's afraid of Pierce, I think. And he knows a lot about us, he even knows about Isabel's weird obsession with calling our abilities gifts. And…" She paused. "He said he didn't kill Andrew and Jessica."

"Do you believe him?"

Tess considered her answer carefully. "He's trying to gain our trust, and admitting to killing Andrew and Jessica would be very detrimental to that end. He has every reason to lie."

Max raised an eyebrow. "You didn't answer my question," he replied.

Tess gave a hint of a smile. "I don't know, Max," she replied. "I want to believe him. It didn't seem like he was lying, but…"

"But what?"

"Even if he isn't lying about that, it doesn't mean he's our friend," Tess said firmly.

"There's too much going on right now to just openly trust this man," Max agreed. He eyed the look on Tess' face and frowned to himself. She seemed lost in thought about something else. "Tess? What are you thinking?" he asked softly, curiously.

"Everything that's going on… Atherton and the symbol and the orb. Michael's vision about someone being tortured in a white room. Hank Guerin threatening revealing Michael's secret to the wrong people. Ms. Topolski and Jim investigating us." Tess lifted her eyes to Max's face. She had a contemplative look on her features. "I used to think it was all just a result of you healing Liz. Now… now I'm not so sure."

"Why not?" Max questioned, inwardly relieved that she was actually not blaming him for everything that had gone wrong.

"Your visions with Liz. Amy DeLuca getting in the car accident and Sean coming to Roswell. And now… with Brody coming to Roswell… None of those are because of what you did. The car accident with Amy wasn't even alien-related. But it still affects us."

"So?"

Tess looked away again, staring out towards the window. The sun was creeping slowly through the sky, sending tendrils of red and gold spinning around the horizon. She liked the sunrise, she liked knowing that the sun would _still_ rise, no matter what. "What if everything's happening for a reason? Even the things that don't seem like they could be related… What if this was all meant to… What if this is some big cosmic… something?"

"Like God?" Max asked. "Because I'm not so sure if I believe in all that."

"No, not God," Tess replied, shaking her head. She was silent again, still deep in thought. Finally, she turned back to Max and asked, "Max, do you believe in fate? In destiny?"

* * *

Next Chapter: Surviving by Rules 

Due: Sun 1/28


	62. Surviving by Rules

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: This chapter takes place around the same time that the last chapter did, and it focuses more on the human members of the group. Also, the 'rules' in this chapter are taken from chapter six _The Rules of the Game._ However, I don't include all the rules because they don't all fit.

Also, as a side note, I haven't quite figured out what all of Nasedo's powers are yet. So far, I know he can shape-shift and he can dream-walk and he can kill. As for the dream-walking, unlike Isabel, he can also influence what people dream about. Which is why he was able to go into Isabel's dream about Michael and take Michael's place. I don't actually remember what he could do on the show, so I'm making it up for this story as I go along.

* * *

Chapter Sixty-One: Surviving by Rules

"How did it go with Max?" Maria asked casually as she sat down on Liz's bed and pulled her knees into her chest.

Liz, who was in the process of folding a sweater and replacing it in her drawer, paused and glanced over her shoulder at Maria, one eyebrow quirked in a questioning stare. "What do you mean?"

Maria frowned slightly. "You went to tell him about the phone call Alex received, didn't you?" she asked. When Liz gave an affirmative nod, she continued, "So, obviously, you must have interacted with him. And I know you were avoiding him, or at least trying to…"

_Rule Eight of Survival: Never date anyone within the group, bad break-ups cause unnecessary problems._

Liz ran a hand through her hair, pulling apart the knots that had formed. She was quiet for a moment, thinking over Maria's question. At last, she replied slowly, "It was awkward, I guess." She lapsed into, trying to put her thoughts into coherent words. "I know I love him. And I know he loves me. I just… I guess I'm not sure if that's enough."

"Well, chica, it seems like you have a problem on your hands," Maria replied with a slight smile.

Liz stuffed the sweater into the appropriate drawer and turned back to face Maria, a puzzled expression clouding her features. At Maria's inquisitive expression, Liz explained, "I was just thinking about something Max told me a long time ago. About… about how he and Michael, Isabel, and Tess all lived by a set of rules that kept them alive and safe."

"So?" Maria pressed, gesturing for Liz to take a place on the bed next to her.

"Max broke those rules when he healed me,' Liz said thoughtfully. "That was why Isabel, Michael, and Tess were so annoyed at him."

_Rule One of Survival: Never tell the secret to anyone outside the group._

"You were dying," Maria protested angrily, still upset by the fact that the other three aliens seemed content to let Liz die. She understood that they were worried about their own safety, but still…

"Yeah…" Liz trailed off and stared blankly out into space.

"Liz? Chica?" Maria placed hand on her friends arm. "Penny for your thoughts?"

Liz let out a breath slowly and said, "I used to think that having all these rules was overkill. That they were just building boxes around themselves that limited what they could do and who they could be. But now… I guess now I'm just no so sure."

"What changed your mind?" Maria asked, worried. She didn't like the look in Liz's eyes, the resigned despair. Was she giving up on Max?

Liz hesitated, chewing her bottom lip contemplatively. "If Max hadn't healed me, the Sheriff wouldn't have started the investigation. If Max hadn't healed me, Ms. Topolski wouldn't have been sent here. If Ms. Topolski is the one who tried to screw up Michael's living situation, then I am responsible for that also. And now, this mystery alien who called Alex… I told Alex the truth about the aliens. I pulled him into this mess, and now this guy knows who he is. He knows how to reach Alex. And what about you? What if I've put you in danger as well?"

"None of us have died yet," Maria pointed out logically. "As for Michael, I think he is actually pleased that he doesn't live with Hank anymore. Ms. Topolski's gone. And Tess took care of Jim, and she can continue to make sure he doesn't find out about them." She didn't like the implication of Liz's words, it sounded as though the brunette was implying it would have been better if Max had just let her die.

Liz, seeming to understand what Maria was thinking, said firmly, "I don't wish I was dead. And I'm still glad that Max healed me, I just… I don't want anything to happen to him or you or Alex because of it." She broke off again and gave Maria a long look. Then she finished softly, "He wasn't supposed to tell me the truth, I wasn't part of the group…"

Maria considered this for a moment, then replied, "You've had flashes of… something… with Max, right? Flashes of a life that he doesn't remember?" Liz nodded in agreement, and Maria continued, "Well, have you considered the possibility that you are actually supposed to be part of the group?"

Liz raised an eyebrow. "Are you suggesting that I am actually an alien? My parents adopted me and just didn't tell me? Because too many people think I look like my Dad for that to be true," she countered, shaking her head.

Maria laughed, and the sound bounced off the walls. She blinked abruptly, realizing it had been a long time since she had truly laughed. "I didn't mean it like that, Liz. I just… Some things happen for a reason."

Liz shook her head. "I don't know, Maria. I think I'm too much of a scientist to believe in God or fate or any of that."

"I'm not talking about some Supreme Being that has our lives mapped out from birth," Maria retorted. "It's just that so much is happening right now that affects the seven of us. It's like some big cosmic joke to screw up our lives as much as possible. And maybe this is the way it's supposed to be. Maybe we were always supposed to be in this together."

_Rule Seven of Survival: One person's problem is everyone's problem ._

Liz offered Maria a small smile and a slight nod for her effort. Maybe they were supposed to mixed up in this crazy mess. She rubbed her eyes for a moment, and then asked softly, "Do you ever wish it hadn't happened? That everything was just… normal?"

_Rule Two of Survival: Never waste time wishing for normalcy, you won't get it. _

"Yes," Maria replied honestly. "All the time." She took a slow breath, organizing her thoughts, then said, "But my father said something to me several days ago that I try to keep in mind."

"You called him your _father_," Liz said in surprise, widening her eyes at Maria. The other girl blushed slightly, a pink tinge appearing on her cheeks.

"I… he… he's been acting like one," Maria explained, stumbling over the words. She wasn't really sure when she had come to the realization that she wanted to think of him as her father. "I mean, I'm never going to call him Dad to his face or anything like that, but I still… I'd still think of him as my father…or a father-figure. You know?"

Liz eyed the soft smile that filled Maria's face and the glow that seemed to radiate from her eyes, and realized suddenly how important this was to her friend. She had never really thought about what it would be like to not have a father, but she could tell that Maria really wanted things to work out with Sean. "I'm glad," she murmured with a smile of her own.

Maria flushed even more and looked away. "Thanks," she muttered.

"So, what was this amazing bit of advice your father gave you?" Liz asked curiously.

"He said you can never go backwards, so you might as well just focus on moving forward."

* * *

Alex stared at the computer screen. He had made plans to hang out with Maria and Liz. Despite the chilling phone call he had received early that day, Liz still wanted to have a 'girl's night.' He was rather appalled at the fact that they thought of him as 'just one of the girls,' but he couldn't deny that it had been a long time since they had hung out as just the three of them. It would be nice to do that again.

As long as they didn't make him watch chick flicks.

Maria was heading over at eight o'clock, but he had decided not to head over until closer to nine. He knew that Liz was having difficulties in her relationship (if you could even still call it that) with Max, and that she would probably want to talk to Maria about it. He had given her advice once, but he simply wasn't good at that sort of thing. So he wanted to give them some time to talk about their respective boys before he showed up himself.

He also wanted to avoid any questions about Isabel and how that (currently nonexistent) relationship was going.

What would he say to their questions anyway? That Isabel rarely looked at him now? That every time she caught his eyes she'd look away before he could say anything? That whenever he wanted to talk to her she was surrounded by Tess, Jessica, Sara, or Trudy, and they looked at him like he was a slug to be squished?

_Rule Five of Survival: Never cause unnecessary problems during a crisis_

Isabel was a popular girl now, and he was still a geek.

But even more than that, he never really felt like he was really a part of the group. Sure, max had called him when they needed help with Michael, but it wasn't as though any of the aliens spent much time talking to him when there wasn't an emergency. Isabel was firmly entrenched in both the popular group and the alien group, and he felt like an outsider to both of them.

How was he supposed to pursue any type of relationship with her when he couldn't even entertain the idea of hanging out with her friends?

_Rule Three of Survival: Never have a serious relationship with anyone outside the group._

He finished sending the email and turned off his computer. It was close to eight-thirty, so he stood up and got ready to head over to Liz's house.

* * *

"Where is she?" Agent Pierce hissed angrily as he paced up and down the floor of the empty warehouse. Moonlight filtered in through one of the dirty windows, illuminating the specks of dust that floated in the air.

"I don't know, sir," Agent Willis replied nervously. He knew that question had been rhetorical, but when he was nervous, he had the unfortunate habit of talking to fill the empty space.

"Agent Topolski could not have just disappeared," Pierce spat. "She has to be _somewhere_." He remembered the shock he had felt upon receiving the news from Willis that Ms. Topolski was gone. The agent had cleaned out everything in her office, quite a few files from her apartment, and changed all the records in the school computer so that it was impossible for anyone to track her movements or to know what she had been working on.

"Do we really need to find her?" Willis asked. "She is not a threat, and we could proceed without her." He shot a wary glance at Pierce, but his superior had turned away so he could not see the other man's expression.

"Of course we need to find her," Pierce replied icily. "I refuse to have any loose ends. She may still be a threat." At the very least, he wanted all of the information she had. He had been lax with her, allowing her to keep much of her findings to herself until she had distinct theories and ideas. Which meant that she probably knew a lot more than he did right now, and he was not about to let her get away with that.

"What do you want me to do?" Willis asked finally. He doubted they'd be able to find Ms. Topolski if she really wanted to keep herself hidden.

Pierce, it seemed, had reached the same conclusion. "If she does not wish to be found, she can evade us for a long time. But I know Julia Topolski. She's not just going to let this drop."

"You think she's going to continue investigating the suspects?" Willis asked. He could see her doing that, searching for clues on the internet and in old newspapers and magazines. However, to really find anything notable, she would eventually have to come out of hiding long enough to spy on the suspects. Perhaps that was when they would find her.

"Keep your eyes open, Willis. She's probably still in Roswell," Pierce said at last.

* * *

Isabel took one look at the mail that had arrived in the morning and muttered, "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

Max glanced at her and reached for the letter she was staring at in disgust. She handed it to him, and he too groaned as he read the outside.

* * *

"I'm not doing it," Tess said, shoving the letter across the table to Jim. "I don't care if it builds character and whatever. I don't like bugs."

"I always enjoyed them," Kyle commented as he took a bite of cereal. Tess shot him a withering glance and left the room, mumbling something under her breath about stupid jocks.

* * *

Michael stared at his letter gleefully; he was now a legal adult and he could opt out of this particular hell if he wanted. He smirked in sudden pleasure as he imagined the jealous expressions on Isabel and Max's faces when he informed them that he didn't have to participate.

* * *

"Great. Just great," Maria hissed, looking over Liz's shoulder at the mail. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes as Alex came trundling down the stairs. "They shouldn't be allowed to have mail on Saturdays."

"If they didn't, we would have received it on Monday," Liz pointed out logically, although she too was not looking forward to this particular event.

"What is it?" Alex asked curiously. He had spent the night (in a separate room, of course, because only girls were allowed to sleep in Liz's room), and had not had a chance to return to his own house and find his own letter.

Liz turned and held the letter out to him. "Read."

* * *

"I always enjoyed them," Mr. Evans said cheerfully as he took in Max and Isabel's identical looks of disbelief.

"It will be good for you two to get away for a while," Mrs. Evans added.

* * *

"If Kyle and I are going, you are too, Tess," Jim called down to his adopted daughter's bedroom.

In response, Tess slammed her door.

Kyle just laughed.

* * *

Michael put the letter down on the table and continued preparing breakfast. This didn't concern him anymore.

Mr. Parker walked into the room and stared at the three teenagers who were crowded around the letter. "What is that?" he asked curiously.

"School invitation," Liz replied glumly.

"They want us to build character and get fresh air and exercise and survival skills," Alex explained, somewhat disheartened by the idea.

"Oh, so it's the invitation to the yearly Roswell High School camping trip in Frasier Woods?" Mr. Parker questioned with a smile. He knew how much most of the student body hated the trip.

"Yes," Maria said with a huge fake smile. "Isn't it great? Next weekend we get to go on the Annual Camping Trip From Hell."

* * *

Next Chapter: Plans and Counter Plans

Due: Sun 2/4


	63. Plans and Counter Plans

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: _Italics_ are dreams. Michael and Isabel's dreams are changing. Right now, they aren't going to make much sense to you right now, but eventually everything will be clearer… hopefully.

* * *

Chapter Sixty-Two: Plans and Counter Plans

_Isabel ran her hand through the tiny pool of cold water and watched as tiny droplets formed on her smooth skin and created rivulets that ran through her fingers and fell onto the sand. Her hair was pulled back from her face in an elaborate twist and tiny tendrils fell down across her neck. She stared at her own reflection in the water. She saw her own eyes staring back, familiar, and yet somehow so different._

_Behind her, Michael stared up at the sky. "Do you think it's going to rain?" he asked._

_Isabel looked at him, laughter in her eyes, but he was frowning off into the distance. The desert spread out around them, a great expanse of tan sand and rocks surrounding their little oasis. _

_A cat streaked across the ground, a flash of black and white fur. It paused for a moment by Michael, weaving between his legs, and then ran off, disappearing over the desert and into the distance._

"_Who's going to look after him when we're gone?" Isabel asked, her eyes on the fading cat._

"_Aren't these things supposed to take care of themselves?" Michael replied. _

"_Some kind of higher purpose, a supreme being? Something guiding us, looking after us?" Isabel asked, tearing her eyes away from the cat as it vanished completely from view and looked up at Michael._

_Michael shook his head. "No. Nobody watches now." Isabel didn't reply, and Michael said again, "Do you think it's going to rain?"_

"_Rain?" Isabel repeated._

"_It always rains," Michael said, more to himself than to her. "Fire, water, wind… rain."_

"_Of course," Isabel agreed. "So much for all of us to do." She glanced down at her hand, and caught sight of a thin white scar that slipped from her wrist along to her elbow. She traced it with one finger. "Scar tissue," she murmured._

"_It fades," Michael said softly. "Everything fades."_

Isabel awoke with a start and a pounding headache. "What on Earth was that?" she whispered.

* * *

"I can't do this. I just can't," Maria muttered under her breath as she paced back and forth across the whitewashed hallway. Behind her, Liz watched her every move with a scrutinizing gaze, as though trying to pick apart the pieces of her friend's appearance. Alex was sitting on the bench a few steps away from Liz, and his eyes kept moving back and forth between the two friends. He wasn't so sure why Maria was hesitant to see her mother, but apparently Liz understood the reservations. Inwardly, he didn't like the thought that he had been left out of the loop, but outwardly, he fixed his face into an expression of concern.

"Maria, she's your mother. She loves you, and she's worried about you," Liz pointed out reasonably, her gaze shifting to the door to her right behind which she knew was Amy DeLuca's room.

Maria nodded slowly. She knew all of this was true, both Sean and Liz had told her as much. But it was still hard to accept it.

"Besides," Alex added, looking up with a bemused grin, "think of all the news you can tell her. You know, how you're dating Michael now and how you're looking forward to the Roswell High School camping trip."

Maria rolled her eyes at her friend. "I am _not_ looking forward to that," she said fervently. "And I can just picture my Mom's face if I walk in there and tell her that I'm dating. She's going to want to give me the whole birds and bees talk, and I don't think I can handle that right now."

"Hey, you're lucky it's your mother who's going to give you that talk," Liz replied, wincing as she remembered her father's own butchered attempts to explain sex to her when she first started dating Kyle. Her mother had been away on a trip, and Mr. Parker had walked into Liz's room to see her kissing Kyle. He had apparently felt that the sex talk couldn't wait until Mrs. Parker got home because, after kicking Kyle out of the house, he sat Liz down and started stumbling through an explanation that began with _when a boy and a girl love each other very much…_

Liz face flushed beet red as she remembered that incident, and both Maria and Alex snickered. Liz had called them as soon as the humiliating ordeal was over to complain about her father, and Maria had teased her mercilessly about it. The only saving grace of the entire event was that both Maria and Alex had promised not to inform Kyle that Mr. Parker thought he might be having sex with Liz.

Maria ran a hand through her hair and took a shaky breath. "Okay," she said at last. "Here I go." And with a determined expression, she walked over to her mother's hospital room door and pushed it open.

The room looked the same as before, only now her mother was sitting up in bed. Amy's face was flushed with a pink tint and her eyes were bright, signs that meant she was returning to her old self and her full health. She looked up as the door opened, and a tentative smile crossed her face as she saw Maria.

"Hey," she said softly.

Maria stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. "Hi, Mom…" she replied softly. She studied her mother's appearance, and continued, "You look much better."

"The doctor thinks I can be out of here soon," Amy replied. Her eyes lit up even more at the comment, a sign of how desperately she wanted to leave the confines of the hospital room.

Maria grinned. "That's great!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah…" Amy let the sentence drift as she thought about her latest conversation with Jim a few days ago. It had been awkward to say the least, but she had managed to stumble through an explanation of why she had never told him about Sean before. She assured him that she had been in the middle of filing for a divorce when all of this happened, and that things between her and Sean were over, and had been for almost sixteen years. Still, it had been a difficult conversation, and she knew once she left the confines of the hospital, she'd have to explain it to more and more curious people. Sean's presence would not go unnoticed in this tiny town, and too many people would have questions about why he was here.

Maria saw the reluctance in her mother's face and heard the hesitancy in her voice, and interpreted it completely differently. Assuming that her mother was worried about what things would be like once she returned home and Maria could no longer avoid her as easily, the blonde rushed to say, "I'm sorry I haven't been here a lot. When you come home, I'll be around much more, I promise."

Amy frowned and said, "I know it's been hard for you, Maria. I'm not blaming you for needing time to… adjust."

"I don't need any more time," Maria said firmly. "I've come to terms with it all… or, at least, as much of it as I can. I just… I want you to come home, Mom." As soon as she said the words, she realized that they were true. It had been difficult for her, and it would continue to be difficult, but she wanted her mother to come home.

"If you want to talk about anything…" Amy offered.

Maria shook her head. "I talk to Sean about a lot," she said. "He helped with it all."

Amy breathed a sigh of relief, pleased that Sean and Maria had been able to come to some sort of understanding. "I'm glad," she said gently.

There was a momentary silence, then Maria said, "So, we have the camping trip this weekend."

"Are you going?" Amy asked with a smile, knowing perfectly well how much Maria hated the trip. "I can't go this year, obviously, but I'm sure the Parkers or the Whitmans would take you." She paused, an idea occurring to her, but she remained silent a moment longer, wondering if she should suggest it.

The idea, however, had already occurred to Maria, and she could tell that her mother was thinking about it as well. "Or Sean?" she offered.

"If you want. It's just a thought," Amy replied with a shrug, and then winced as the movement caused a wave of pain. She always forgot to be careful about that, but the doctor had said that her neck would be sore for a while and she needed to be cautious with her movements.

Maria considered it. "We'll see," she said at last, not wanting to make a decision either way quite yet. Walking over to her mother, she took a seat on the edge of the bed. "I'm really glad you're doing better. I can't wait for you to come back home."

Amy laughed. "Me, too," she replied emphatically.

* * *

Cynthia Drake poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at her kitchen table, one hand wrapped around the ceramic mug. She stared out of the window across from her into the backyard. Her two children were playing on the swing set, laughing happily. In the distance, the desert stretched out, shimmering yellow and gold, and the brilliant blue sky was completely cloudless. It was like a picture-perfect Hallmark greeting card.

Except for the missing father.

She thought over everything Nick had told her about Justin, about Michael Guerin, about the FBI. Nick thought that she and her daughters might still be in danger, and it would be best if they moved away. Cynthia was loathe to just leave, especially if someone had done something to Justin. She wanted to stay and figure out who was behind this, and make that person play for tearing apart her family. But if her daughters were in danger…

Nick had promised he would stay and look into this. She trusted him to keep his word, and if anyone could find the answers, it was him. She supposed that would have to be enough.

She'd call Nick and tell him she was going back to the Eat Coast.

* * *

Nick, meanwhile, was sitting on the bed of his hotel room, and phone book open on his lap, the phone clenched tightly in his fist. He'd investigated a few leads, but everywhere he looked he came up with dead ends. Whatever was going on, someone was doing a very good job of covering it up.

He hung up the phone after yet another unhelpful interview and shook his head. Grabbing a pad of paper from the bedside table, he glanced at all of his notes and tried to figure out what do pursue next.

He hadn't learned much, but one fact struck him as slightly ominous. The guidance counselor, Ms. Julia Topolski, had quit her job without so much as a notice, only a few weeks after Justin had disappeared. The guidance counselor had been FBI, she'd been the one to show her badge to Justin, to tell him that she was investigating Michael Guerin.

So, had she left on her own accord, or had she been removed the same way Justin had?

He had searched through her background a bit, and found out that she rented an apartment in one of the more seedy neighborhoods. A quick search of the apartment had yielded nothing unusual. A call to a computer expert had shown him that all of the information in her school account and electronic records had been tampered with shortly before or after she disappeared. Her tracks were covered very well.

But Justin had the feeling that there was something there, something right in front of him that he was just missing. He wasn't sure what it was, but his reporter's instinct had never let him down before, and he wasn't about to start ignoring it now.

And that instinct was telling him that she had all the answers he was looking for. She knew much more than even Justin had realized, and he was also almost positive that she was still alive. Something told him she might even still be in Roswell, and that perhaps she was hiding from someone. He wasn't sure who she was hiding from, or why, but his instinct was screaming at him to find her, and fast. Because the longer he waited, the less likely it was that she'd still be alive when he finally did find her.

He needed a plan.

He didn't want to announce his presence to the FBI, so he couldn't really walk into the school and flash his reporter's badge. He needed something more subtle.

He tapped a pencil on the pad of paper thoughtfully, and stared at the first name he'd written down.

Michael Guerin.

The case had started with him, him and Liz Parker. On the outset, there didn't appear to be anything remarkable about him. He was just another kid from the wrong side of the tracks who skipped school and got into fights and never thought about his future. But there had been something remarkable about him, or he would never have been under investigation. Was it that he'd saved Amy DeLuca from certain death in the car crash? Was it that he'd almost killed Hank Guerin? Was it that he'd never been to a doctor before in his life? His medical file showed no laboratory tests of any sort except the one blood test from the fight he got into with his foster father.

And what about Liz Parker? Who had almost gotten shot, but hadn't? She'd fallen and broken a bottle of ketchup. Why had the FBI been so interested in that?

Justin rubbed his weary eyes. Michael Guerin was the person who Ms. Topolski was investigating, and that meant that, if Ms. Topolski was still in Roswell, chances were, she was still observing him. Maybe he should start doing that as well.

* * *

Agent Willis stared at the pictures on his desk. They were taken from security cameras in a small grocery store near the outskirts of Roswell. He ran his thumb over the grainy colors. The photos were not very good quality, but he could still easily make out the figure standing at the checkout counter.

Her hair was dyed much darker, almost black, and she was wearing sunglasses. Her clothing was looser, obscuring her petite frame.

It was a decent disguise, he thought to himself. If he hadn't been looking for her, he might have easily missed her.

And she was good. She'd only been in the store for a few minutes, and although he'd put every other grocery store under surveillance as well, he hadn't seen her anywhere else. She hadn't bought enough food to sustain herself for more than a few hours, so why hadn't she shown up again?

Or had she even needed the food that she'd bought? Willis peered at the pile of groceries she'd put on the counter. Oranges, hairspray, a candy bar, light bulbs. He frowned. That was hardly a normal shopping list.

So maybe she didn't go into the store to shop. Maybe she wanted something else, and needed an excuse to be in there.

Willis grabbed the other photos and began to search through them, looking for something, anything, that would indicate why she had entered the store.

It took only a few minutes, then his gaze landed on another figure in the back of one of the other photos. The roughness of the picture made it difficult to identify the person without a magnifying glass, but, leaning close to the photo, Willis could clearly make out the features of Michael Guerin, standing in one of the aisles, buying bread.

Willis stood up instantly and reached for the phone. Dialing a number, he waited until Pierce picked up at the other end, then said quickly, "She's still in Roswell, Agent Pierce, and she's still keeping an eye on Michael Guerin."

"You're sure?" Pierce demanded.

"Positive," Willis replied, glancing back down at the photographs spread out around him.

"Has she made contact with him?"

"I don't think so," Willis replied. "There's no evidence of that. I think, perhaps, Guerin doesn't even know he's being followed."

There was a silence while Pierce contemplated this information. Finally, he asked, "How did you learn all this?"

"Surveillance cameras at a grocery store," Willis elaborated instantly. "I was able to access the photo clips from the videos without alerting the store owners to our presence." Pierce didn't ask how Willis had managed that, and Willis didn't offer an explanation. When you break the law, it is best not to tell too many people. And Pierce never cared about the methods as long as the end results were what he wanted.

"When were the photos from?" Pierce questioned.

"Yesterday afternoon, shortly after Guerin received notification that his foster father had passed away," Willis replied. That death had been an annoying one for them all. Hank had been their best link to Guerin, and Willis was sure that the foster father would have spoken if they just applied a little more… pressure. But now he was forever beyond their reach.

"Did she go to any other stores?"

"No," Willis replied. "I accessed the video feeds for all of the stores with security cameras. She hadn't been to any of them since she disappeared. I put a few agents on call at the other grocery stores in case she showed up, but she never did."

Again, there was a silence. Finally, Pierce said, "If she is still keeping an eye on Guerin, then he is our best lead to finding her before she does any damage. We need to make sure that the next time she follows him anywhere, one of us is there to pick her up."

"I'm on it," Willis replied, already making plans in his mind.

* * *

"This is ridiculous," Isabel muttered, looking through her closet. "What am I supposed to wear on a camping trip?"

"It's Saturday, Izzy," Max pointed out as he leaned against the doorjamb and watched her with an amused expression. "The camping trip doesn't start until next Friday afternoon. That's a week. Isn't it a little early to be packing?"

Isabel huffed, but didn't say anything in response. Max took her silence as an invitation to bother her further, and said, "So, I did a little more research into Brody Davis."

"Let me guess," Isabel drawled, "he's really an FBI agent. Or an enemy alien."

Max raised an eyebrow. He wasn't sure if Isabel was making fun of him or of the entire situation, but in that moment she sounded unerringly like Tess.

"He's coming on Wednesday," Max said, ignoring Isabel's comment. "I think we need to have a plan for when he gets here."

Isabel frowned and turned away from her closet full of clothes. "A plan?" she echoed. "What sort of plan?"

"I want to know why he's here," Max replied. "And I don't believe it's just a coincidence. I need a way to determine what his true intentions are." He watched as Isabel considered this for a moment, then continued, "I was thinking of stopping by there on Wednesday and seeing if he needed an assistant to help turn the UFO Center into whatever he wants it to be."

Isabel laughed. "You're going to go looking for a job? Max, you haven't worked a day in your life. Do you even know how?"

"I'll just go and apply," Max said with a shrug. "I'm sixteen, no one's going to expect a college degree." Isabel was still staring at him skeptically, so he continued, "Look, I don't actually need to be hired. I just need to get into the UFO center long enough to look around. See if there's anything there."

"Fine," Isabel replied at last. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I need you to talk to Tess. I want to know if the Sheriff knows anything about Brody. I mean, if he's planning on doing any construction on the building, he's going to have filed paperwork, right?" Max answered. He doubted that the Sheriff would k much, but because this was such a small town, no one wanted to create a special department to take care of business and industry claims. That meant that matters such as building permits and leases were often handled by the Sheriff's office in conjunction with the city council.

"You can't just call Tess yourself?" Isabel shot back curiously.

"Aren't you going over to hang out with her today?" Max countered. Isabel rolled her eyes, and Max shrugged. "Don't blame me for this, Izzy, you're the one who decided to be friends with that group."

"So that automatically makes me the middle man?" Isabel asked in annoyance. "What am I now, the message runner?"

"Yes," Max answered. "You are." He got up from the bed and took a few steps towards the door. Then he turned and glanced back at his sister. "And, seriously, we have a week until the camping trip. Wait and worry about clothing and packing then."

Isabel huffed, "Well, shows how much you know about girls."

Max thought abruptly of Liz, and his on- and off-relationship with her. He wasn't entirely sure where they stood, but he hoped she was going to inform him of that sometime soon.

"No kidding…" he muttered under his breath and walked out of the room.

* * *

"I don't do camping," Michael said stubbornly, his arms crossed over his chest as he glared at the man standing in his doorway. His first night in the apartment had been restless at best. After learning that Hank had passed away, he'd gone to buy some groceries. He'd had the strange sensation of being followed, but despite his paranoid constant glancing over his shoulder, he'd seen nothing. He'd spent the rest of the night sitting up on the sofa in the living room, staring at the windows, and wondering what it had been like for Hank in his last few moments of life.

"I think it would make a good impression if you went," Mr. Evans explained wearily. He could tell that Michael was not thrilled with the idea, but he wasn't about to give up on it.

"Who cares if it makes a good impression?" Michael demanded.

"Michael, Hank obviously can't press charges on you, but that doesn't mean that everything is over," Mr. Evans replied patiently. He had been thinking about this in the early hours of the morning, lying awake in bed and staring at the ceiling. The city could technically still press charges if they wanted. It was unlikely that they would, but the incident hadn't been dismissed yet, and until it was, Mr. Evans knew it would be important for Michael to maintain the appearance of a dedicated and diligent student.

He said as much to Michael, but Michael was unconcerned.

"The city isn't going to do anything," the teenager said firmly. He wasn't sure if he actually believed that, but he really didn't want to go camping.

"No, they probably aren't," Mr. Evans agreed. "But it would be best if you didn't give anyone a reason to doubt your commitment to education right now, and this is a school sponsored field-trip." Michael didn't reply, so Mr. Evans pressed, "I'm just trying to look out for you right now, Michael."

"I don't need anyone to look out for me," Michael snapped instantly. "I'm a legal adult."

"I know," Mr. Evans backtracked quickly. "I'm not doing this because I think you _need_ help, I'm doing it because I _want_ to help you." As far as he was concerned, Michael was still his responsibility, at least until he'd been emancipated long enough to stand on his own two feet without any trouble.

"I have a job, I have an apartment, I have friends, I have…" Michael stopped. He wanted to say he had a girlfriend, but that would then be calling Maria _his_ girlfriend, and he didn't know if he was allowed to go that far. "I've done everything the judge told me I had to do."

"The judge also told you that you would need to do well in school," Mr. Evans pressed. "All aspects of school, not just the academics."

"Fine," Michael said at last, scowling. He refused to give in gracefully, but he couldn't deny the truth of Mr. Evans words.

"Good," Mr. Evans said with a smile. "Then I'll make sure there is enough room in the tent for you, Max, and I." He pulled his coat on and continued, "Isabel will be pleased that you're going as well, it will give her one more person to complain to."

"Lucky me," Michael deadpanned, and Mr. Evans laughed as he made his way from Michael's apartment.

* * *

Next Chapter: Brody Davis

Due: Wed 2/14


	64. Brody Davis

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: So, I've changed a bit about Brody and who he is and why he is in Roswell. Some things from the show may not apply. However, one thing from the show does, so just a reminder to anyone who may have forgotten, Brody has a daughter named Sydney. She is five. She has cancer. She's important.

* * *

Chapter Sixty-Three: Brody Davis

"Is it true that someone's actually buying that old UFO Center?" Tess asked casually as she reached for the salad on the table. Kyle, who drinking a sip of soda, sputtered for a moment, his eyes wide as he glanced over at Tess. Jim looked up from his meal, unconcerned by the question, and shrugged.

"Yes," he said simply.

Kyle goggled. "But it's haunted," he protested. "Everyone knows that. It'll ruin your career if you buy it." He paused for a moment, then asked thoughtfully, "And why would you even want to buy it?"

"He's turning it into an exhibit on extraterrestrial life," Jim explained. He took a bite of food and glanced over at Kyle. After he was done chewing, he asked, "Why are you so surprised?"

"Because…" Kyle trailed off. "I just am," he said at last, defensively. No one in their right mind would buy that place.

"Great," Tess muttered sarcastically. "Just what this town needs. Another alien tourist attraction. Because we don't have enough of those as it is."

"It isn't really going to be a tourist thing," Jim replied, giving another shrug. "It's more…" He hesitated, then explained, "It's more of a science thing."

"There's a science for the study of aliens?" Tess asked curiously. "Now that's just stupid. It's not like there are aliens around that we can dissect and study."

Jim raised an eyebrow questioningly, but said nothing.

Kyle pushed his food around on his plate for a moment, thinking, then asked, "Is it like a lab? He's going to go hunt down meteors or something and… I don't know, study them?"

Jim frowned and replied, "Something like that. I think part of it will be a tourist attraction, after all, Mr. Davis has to make his money somehow, right? But it's also going to be devoted to studying… I don't remember exactly what it was. Electromagnetic waves and sound fields and… other science things." Jim took a sip of water, then finished, "Mr. Davis had to get approval for all this technology that he wanted to bring. We had to make sure it was safe for the town."

"And is it?" Tess asked with a smirk. "Or are we all going to get radiation poisoning and morph into pizza-loving superheroes that thwart the evil plots of overgrown rodents?" She received a blank look from Jim, and explained, "Teenage mutant ninja turtles?" Jim just stared at her. Tess sighed and rolled her eyes, "It was a pop culture reference," she explained. "Don't worry about it."

Jim nodded, accepting Tess' explanation, and reassured her, "The machinery is perfectly safe. We wouldn't have let it into Roswell if it wasn't."

"I still can't believe someone is buying the UFO Center," Kyle muttered, more to himself than to either of the other two occupants of the table. Tess shot him an exasperated look, and Jim had to struggle to hold back a smile at his son's continuing disbelief.

"Why do you ask anyway?" Jim questioned, turning his attention back to Tess.

Tess blinked, her gifts enabling her to pick up on something she had never felt from Jim before.

Suspicion.

He'd been wary about her on several occasions in the past, not the least of which was right after he'd adopted her and they had to get used to the idea of being a family. But that suspicion had been layered with confusion and concern. This suspicion was different.

It was the type of suspicion she felt from him when he spoke about Max or Michael.

"Isabel mentioned it to me today," Tess replied honestly, deciding her best response to this new development was to be as truthful as possible without giving anything away. "I was only curious if it was actually true or just another rumor."

"It's actually true," Jim answered.

There was an awkward silence, then Tess asked, "I don't suppose you've changed your mind about the camping trip?"

Jim shook his head emphatically and smiled, and Tess breathed a sigh of relief as the suspicion faded. Still, she'd have to be more careful in the future. Jim was starting to open his eyes to what had been going on under his nose for so long, and she knew her adopted father was anything but stupid. If he started to truly suspect her, it wouldn't be that long before he put the links together and figured out whose side she was really on.

* * *

The rest of the weekend past uneventfully, and Monday morning found Max and Michael standing in front of Michael's locker, talking quietly. Not about their alien related problems or their own internal worries, but about something much more troublesome and difficult to understand. 

Women.

"What am I supposed to do now?" Michael asked in frustration. "I've never done relationships before. Do we start going on dates? Do I buy her flowers? Do I ask her to meet me in the Eraser Room every day?"

Max shrugged. "What does she want you to do?" he asked reasonably.

Michael gave a bitter laugh and replied, "If I knew what Maria wanted, do you think I'd be here trying to get advice from you?" He turned away from Max in frustration and watched all the other students milling about in the hallway. It was easy to see who the couples were, they walked around with big smiles on their faces and their arms wrapped around each other, calling each other things like _sweetie_ and _honey_ and other ridiculous pet names. Michael thought idly that they looked like robots, and he never wanted to end up like that.

But what if that was what Maria wanted?

"Well, what does she act like she wants?" Max pressed.

Michael through his hands up in the air. "I don't know," he complained. "I asked her yesterday what she wanted me to do, and she told me to do whatever I wanted. What kind of answer is that?"

"She doesn't want you to do whatever you want to do," a voice said, and the boys turned to see Isabel sidled up to them with a smirk. "She wants you to figure out what she wants on your own and then pretend that doing whatever she wants is actually what you wanted."

Michael blinked, attempting to understand Isabel's convoluted explanation. After a few moments, he finally demanded, "Why can't she just tell me what she wants?"

"Girls don't do that," Isabel replied simply.

"Girls are insane," Michael growled before stalking away.

Isabel watched him go, then turned to Max and asked casually, "Any bets on how long that relationship is going to last?"

Max sighed. "He obviously likes her," he pointed out quietly. "And I think she likes him. So if they don't end up killing each other, it should be okay."

Isabel bit back a grin and nodded. Then her expression turned serious. "I just talk to Tess. Brody Davis is starting a tourist attraction and science lab in his new building."

Max frowned at that and asked, "What could Tess tell you about it?"

"From what Jim said, she got the impression that Brody isn't here because of rumors about aliens being here now. He's here because of the crash in 1947," Isabel answered.

"How did she figure that one?" Max sincerely hoped that it was true, because it meant that they weren't in any immediate danger. However, any investigation into the crash could ultimately lead to them, and he still needed to know everything he could about this Mr. Davis.

"The science equipment he's bringing into the UFO Center are things to study waves and force fields and the like," Isabel explained. "Environmental factors. Tess thinks if he was here because of us, he'd be brining molecular technology. Something to look at things on a much smaller scale… a cellular scale. Something to actually study people."

Max ran a hand through his hair. "Fine," he said at last. "And the tourist attraction part?"

"The Sheriff thought it was to make money to support the lab," Isabel clarified. She lapsed into silence, then questioned softly, "Are you still going over there on Wednesday?"

Max nodded. "I need to find out what type of person he is. I need to know if he's a threat."

Isabel was about to respond to that, when her eyes drifted past Max and landed on an approaching figure. "I think now is a good time for me to slip away," she said with a smug smile.

Max turned and followed her gaze to see Liz walking towards them, a determined look on her face. He paled slightly, automatically running through the list of reasons Liz could be coming towards him. Was she going to break up with him? That was quite possible. Was she going to tell him she wanted to try again? He'd like to believe that, but it just didn't seem likely at the moment. Or maybe he was just paranoid? Or was she going to inform him that something had happened to Maria or Alex? No, if something had happened to them, she would have called immediately, not waited until she saw them at school. Wouldn't she?

Isabel rolled her eyes, watching the expressions that moved rapidly through Max's face. "She's just a girl, Max," Isabel whispered. "You don't have to look like you are facing the firing squad." And she was gone, disappearing into the crowd.

Liz smiled at Max, but Max thought that her smile looked a little strained. Immediately, her prepared himself for the worst.

"Is everything okay?" Liz asked, nodding in the direction that Isabel had gone.

"Yes," Max said. Then he remembered how upset Liz had been when she had been kept completely out of the loop after Hank and Michael got into their fight, and he rushed over his words in an attempt to fill her in. "This guy is buying the UFO Center and it is possible that he knows about us, or, at least, that the crash of 1947 was real, and I wanted to talk to him this week but I wanted to know more about him before I went to see him, so Isabel was just telling me what Tess had managed to find out from Jim about the guy buying the center."

"Max, slow down," Liz interrupted, trying to make sense of Max's hurried statement. She glanced around the hall, and then said, "On second thought, it might be better if you waited to tell me what was going on until we weren't in school surrounded by people that could turn you in."

"Um… okay." Max's forehead wrinkled slightly as his eyebrows came together in confusion. She hadn't flat out broken up with him yet, that was a good sign. Wasn't it?

"Look, I wanted to talk to you," Liz said. Max looked at her expectantly, and she chewed her bottom lip, trying to come up with a good way of saying what she wanted to say. "It's about… us."

She seemed so confused about what to say, and so worried, that Max's heart immediately sunk. She obviously wanted to break up with him, and just didn't know how to appropriately do it. She was trying to spare his feelings, and he was grateful for that, but it was drawing out the agony of this conversation.

"Liz, it's okay. I understand…" Max whispered softly.

But Liz, so intent on what she needed to say, hardly heard him. She had spent the entire weekend practicing this speech, preparing for this moment, and now, as she stood in front of Max, she completely forgot everything she wanted to say.

She'd have to improvise.

"Max, I realize that there is this other side to you… this Czechoslovakian part that is always going to be there," she said slowly, weighing her words. "I get it, I really do. And… I'm okay with that."

Max was confused. This didn't sound like a breakup. Unless she had a really strange way of telling guys that she didn't want to date them anymore…

"The thing is…"

Ah, Max thought, here's the part where she says that it isn't enough.

"I should be an important part of your life also." Liz smiled slightly and hurried to say, "I'm not saying that you are a bad person or that you don't value your friends and your girlfriend enough. Because you do. It's just… well, you've never had a serious relationship before, right?"

Max nodded dumbly.

"And I've never dated a Czechoslovakian before. So we're just going to need to adjust. You know, work things through as we go along. Be flexible."

Max blinked. That really didn't sound like she was breaking up with him.

"I know you're under a lot of pressure. And I know that there are things out there that you have to deal with, things that are more important than I am. If it is a life or death situation, you can blow me off. If you are in danger from something, you can ignore plans we made. If the world is about to end, you don't have to hang out with me. But you still have to treat me like I am your girlfriend. And if you screw up, you have to apologize. Okay?"

Liz paused, waiting for a response. Max didn't say anything, just stared at her blankly, trying to wrap his head around that fact that he was now very certain she _wasn't_ breaking up with him.

Liz, assuming that his silence meant that he was unhappy with her thoughts, hurried to say, "And in return, I'll try to be more understanding of everything. I promise, I'll try to be okay with the fact that Michael and Isabel and Tess are so important to you. That, in some instances, they have to come first."

Max opened his mouth to say something, and the words that tumbled out were not what he had expected.

"You're not breaking up with me?"

"N-no," Liz stammered, surprised at the question. "I thought we'd just… give this another shot. Take it one step at a time, one day at a time."

"Be flexible," Max said, echoing her earlier words.

Liz nodded hopefully. "Is that… okay?"

Max replied by leaning down and kissing Liz, and the brunette closed her eyes as stars and swirling galaxies burst into her mind.

Across the hallway, Isabel, who had decided to stay and watch her brother and Liz to see what happened, smiled to herself. "Well, it's about time," she murmured, then turned and walked away.

* * *

Maria leaned back against the sofa in the hotel room and watched as Sean carefully poured orange juice into a glass. As he replaced the orange juice container in the mini refrigerator, Maria asked cautiously, "So… how long are you planning on staying in Roswell?" Now that her mother was going to be leaving the hospital soon, Sean didn't really have a legal reason to stay. She was fairly certain her mother would continue with the divorce, and Sean could return to his home. 

Sean handed the glass of orange juice to Maria, and she gratefully accepted it, then he replied, "I don't know. I have to talk to your mother about that. She's going to be in physical therapy for a while and… well, I might be able to help you both if I stayed around." He took a seat across from Maria and added, "But it might be to complicated. She might… she might prefer it if I went home. I'm sure her friends and the Sheriff would be more than willing to help you both."

Maria nodded. She wasn't sure if she wanted Sean to stay or not. It would be complicated to have him here, and anyone who knew Amy assumed that Sean had bailed on her, so he wouldn't be that welcome in the town. But she liked him. He was… well, he wasn't her father, but he was close. He was about as close as she had ever come, and after spending these weeks with him, she was starting to realize what she was missing by not having a father. She wasn't sure she wanted to lose that.

"There's this camping trip next weekend," Maria explained. It was Tuesday now, and the camping trip was only a few days away. And she still really didn't want to go.

"Oh?" Sean asked curiously.

Maria rolled her eyes. "It's horrible. The school makes us all go. One or both of our parents come also. My mom hated it, she wasn't really a camping person." Maria smiled, and added as an afterthought, "I'm not a camping person either."

Sean laughed. "Are you going this year?" he asked. With Amy in the hospital, Maria didn't have anyone to go with.

Maria shrugged. "I don't know. Michael is." She flushed as soon as she said the words.

Sean smiled. "I see," he said softly.

Maria flushed an even deeper shade of crimson. "He told me this weekend. He's going with Mr. Evans and Max and Isabel." Michael had been over at her house on Sunday. He'd wanted to know what they were supposed to do now in their relationship and she had told him to do whatever he wanted to do. Of course, being a guy, he probably didn't think of a relationship as anything other than a girl you consistently make-out with in the Eraser Room.

"Is Liz or Alex going? I'm sure you could go with one of them," Sean suggested.

"Yeah…" Maria trailed off and sighed. "It would just be weird… going with a family that isn't mine…"

Sean stared at Maria for a moment. He knew what she was trying to imply, and he couldn't deny that the chance to go on this camping trip with her was perfect. He would be able to get the Royal Four alone in the woods, and that was an opportunity not to be missed.

But it would also mean putting himself in close quarters with everyone. It would be so easy to make a mistake, any little mistake, and everything would be ruined. Besides, he still didn't fully trust that the Princess wouldn't see through his disguise. After all, she had known that he wasn't really Hannigan all those weeks ago when he had first come to Roswell and impersonated the deputy. He had gone out of his way to stay away from her, and he didn't want to take any chances right now. Not when he was so close.

Besides, if the Royal Four were together in the woods, he could always slip out there and visit them anyway…

"Maria, you don't want to go with me," Sean said firmly.

Maria stared at him in surprise. She had hoped that he would offer to take her, and now he was telling her that this wasn't actually what she wanted?

"Yes, I do," she protested, but Sean just shook his head.

"No, you don't," he said. "You only think you do." Maria gave him a blank look and he sighed. "You think you want to go with me because you think that will make us a family. It doesn't work like that."

"We are family," Maria argued. "Or, at least, you said you wanted to be my father…"

"And I still do," Sean rushed to assure her. "Of course I do. And we will be a family, I promise you that. But these things need to be built, and they take time. You can't just jump from introductions to the camping trip when you've missed all the steps in between."

"But…"

"Maria," Sean said, leaning towards her and placing his hands on her knees. "You and your mother are so important to me. And I want to be your family. But I just… There are steps and guidelines and paths and… I just want to do this right."

Maria nodded slowly. Everything he said made sense. She gave a soft smile. "You're right," she agreed at last. "I'm trying to push this too quickly."

"I'm flattered, though," Sean said. "That you would want me to come on the camping trip."

"So, we should start with something smaller," Maria decided. Sean raised an eyebrow at her and she continued, "You've had dinner with Michael. You should have dinner with Liz and Alex as well." She paused, then added, "And, hey, if everything works out between Max and Liz, maybe Max would come too."

Sean smiled. "I'd like that."

* * *

School on Wednesday afternoon ended too quickly for Liz's liking. Max had filled her in on everything they knew about Brody, and she had been reluctant about his plan. If this man was dangerous, she didn't like the idea of Max going to see him alone. 

But Max had assured her that everything would be fine, kissed her on the cheek, and headed towards the UFO Center.

Judging by the worried expression she had seen on both Isabel and Michael's faces, she wasn't the only one who wasn't sure this was a good idea.

That thought didn't really make her feel better.

Max, seemly oblivious to the concern he was causing, paused outside the entrance of the UFO center and took a slow breath. Then he reached out and pushed open the door, squinting slightly as he stepped into the dim light.

The room was filled with boxes, large stacks of cardboard and crates that piled up against the walls. The air was heavy with dust and Max's steps left prints in the thin layer of dirt on the ground. the windows were grimy and the room smelled old and musty.

Obviously, no one had bothered to take care of the abandoned Center in its years of disuse.

"Can I help you?"

Max jumped and turned to eye the man who had stepped out of the backroom. He was medium height with slightly unruly light brown hair and large eyes that were mostly hidden by the shadows of the room. His face was smudged with dust and his calloused hands were folded across his chest as he regarded Max with open suspicion.

"Mr. Davis?" Max asked.

"That's right," Brody replied. He stepped further into the light, and Max was able to discern his features. His eyes were brown as well, and his hair had blonde highlights in it, most likely the effects of spending too much time in the sun. His skin was spattered with freckles.

Max had expected someone who looked like a scholar or an elderly librarian, complete with the glasses, mug of tea, and large tome stowed under one arm. Brody Davis looked like he belonged on an archeological excavation site, not in a tourist attraction and laboratory.

"I'm Max Evans," Max introduced himself. "I… well, I'm looking for a job." Max hadn't really thought past the first opening lines, and now he was at a loss for what to say. He floundered about for a bit, his gaze moving rapidly across the room, before continuing, "I guess I just thought I'd see if you needed any help."

"Help?" Brody mimicked. "With what?"

Max shrugged. "I don't know. Setting up, unloading boxes, or something like that?" Brody considered this silently, and Max hurried on, "I haven't got a lot of experience, but I'm a quick study."

"How old are you, kid?" Brody asked at last.

"Sixteen," Max replied.

"You interested in aliens?" Brody pressed.

Max hesitated, unsure of how to reply. Finally, he said, "I'm interested in working. In making money. I don't really have any skills, so there aren't that many places I can go."

Brody gave a reluctant smile. "Well, at least your honest," he replied. He was about to say more when the door behind him open and a small face poked out.

A girl stepped into the room. She couldn't have been more than five or six. Her hair was a dirty blonde color, and it was pulled back from her face in two pigtails. Her face was flushed, and strands of hair were plastered to her skin with sweat. Her eyes were soft blue and widened slightly as they caught sight of Max. She was clutching a teddy bear in her hands.

"Daddy?"

Brody turned almost immediately and dropped to his knees next to the girl. "What is it, Sydney? How are you feeling?"

"I'm sleepy," Sydney replied with a yawn. She held out her bear to her father and said, "And Mr. Snuggles says his tummy hurts."

"Really?" Brody's eyes traveled to his daughter's stomach for a moment as though trying to determine whether or not she suffered from the same complaint as her stuffed animal. "Maybe I should take you home?"

"Are you all done with settin' up?" the child questioned.

Brody glanced around. It was clear that he had wanted to unpack more today, but that wasn't going to be an option anymore. "Yes, I'm done for today," he said quietly, more to himself than to his daughter.

Max stared at the little girl. He could tell something was wrong with the child, but he didn't know what it was.

Brody looked up at Max, a contemplative expression on his face. Finally, he said, "You want to help, Mr. Evans?"

Max started. "Um… yeah."

"I haven't had the chance to find a nanny for my daughter yet," Brody explained. "So, for right now, there's not much you can do because I'm not going to be able to really settle in to this center for a few days. But once Sydney has a nanny, things might be pretty busy. Come back next week, and maybe I'll have a job for you."

He picked his daughter up and carried her through the door into the backroom. Max stood still for a moment, stunned. He had not actually expected to get a job… Still, he mused, at least this way he would be able to keep an eye on Brody, figure out why he was here.

He walked down the stairs from the doorway and paused at one of the boxes. It was partially open, and he carefully lifted away the top. Inside where several maps and rolled up pieces of paper. Shooting an apprehensive look at the room Brody had disappeared into, he quickly pulled out one of the maps and unfurled it.

It was a map of Fraiser Woods.

Several spots on the map were marked in red or black ink with numbers and letters. They didn't make any sense to Max, but his eyes were drawn to a marking on the right side of the map. It was a replica of that same symbol, the four circles with the spirals inside of them, linked by the x. It was drawn in the middle of a section of the map labeled Pohlman Ranch.

On a whim, Max stuffed the map under his coat. With one last look around, he turned and hurried out of the building.

* * *

The fire gave off little heat and even less smoke. It was almost nothing more than embers that glowed and glistened in the darkness of the cave. The man watched the tiny flames, the red and orange, the dancing shadows. Finally, he tore his eyes away and let them wander across the length of the cave, across the chalk and oil drawings that covered the walls. 

Outside the cave, the forest was quiet. In the distance, the hills sloped down into the town of Roswell, and beyond that, the desert rolled on for miles. Around him, the Native American reservation was silent.

A man appeared in the entrance to the cave. He was young, and his eyes were dark and unreadable. He glanced at the fire, and then to the sitting man. "Riverdog?" he asked. "It's me. Eddie. What are you doing?"

Riverdog stood slowly, his old body stiff with age and fatigue. "They're coming," he said, his words reverberating in the stillness of the cave.

* * *

Next Chapter: Annual Camping Trip From Hell 

Due: Thurs 2/22


	65. Annual Camping Trip From Hell

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: I know on the show only father's went on the camping trip. In my story, either parent can go. Mostly it is the fathers who go, but mothers have gone in the past, which is why Maria's been on the trip before.

* * *

Chapter Sixty-Four: Annual Camping Trip From Hell

"I'm not going on the camping trip," Alex announced triumphantly as he stood in the doorway to Liz's room and watched her pack. It was Thursday afternoon, and they were all supposed to leave for the trip Friday after school. Maria had arranged to go with the Parkers, an arrangement that Liz had been very pleased about as it meant she'd have one more person to complain to about this entire ridiculous outing.

"You're not?" Liz demanded. "Why? How did you get out of it?"

Alex shrugged. "I told my Dad I didn't want to go," he explained. "I said I wanted to stay and spend the weekend working on homework and reading about technology and that sort of thing."

"And he bought it?" Liz asked incredulously.

Alex frowned thoughtfully at the question. "I don't think so," he admitted. "I'm pretty sure he knew I just didn't want to go camping. But he agreed not to make me go."

"You're so lucky," Liz complained under her breath as she stuffed another sweater into duffel bag.

"Jealous much?" Alex shot back with a laugh. Liz glared at him, and he changed the subject quickly, "So, I hear you and Max are back together."

Liz's mouth split into a wide smile that lit up her face, and she nodded. It had only been a few days since they had attempted to start over, but things were going relatively well. Max had called her the moment he had returned from Brody's and informed her that he had managed to get himself a job. And hadn't that been a surprise to everyone, including Max. But other than that, not much alien had happened in the past week, and Liz was enjoying the time with Max.

There were still some lingering concerns. She'd see moments were he would stare off into the distance, lost in his own thoughts, and she knew he was worried about the fact that Topolski was still out there, as was this mysterious alien and the FBI agent Pierce. But he'd always pull himself back into the present if she started talking, and she knew she couldn't really ask for much else.

"Well, I'm glad," Alex said firmly, ignoring the tiny bit of unease that churned in his stomach. Liz had Max and Maria had Michael. Now that his two best friends had their respective significant others, where did that leave him?

Liz, oblivious to Alex's internal distress, just smiled and agreed, "Me, too."

* * *

"You are _not_ sick! You never get sick. _We_ never get sick," Max protested angrily as Isabel displayed the thermometer to her mother.

Mrs. Evans ignored her arguing children and took the thermometer from Isabel. She glanced at the reading and sighed. "One-hundred and one," she said in concern. She placed her hand on Isabel's forehead and remarked, "Well, you do feel warm."

"I don't feel well," Isabel replied.

"Alright, I want you to lie down," Mrs. Evans instructed. "I'll call you school and tell them that you can't make it today. And I don't want you going on that camping trip either, not with a fever like this."

Max glared at Isabel, but she just smiled sweetly back at him and said sarcastically, "Oh, that's a shame. I was so looking forward to it."

"She's faking, Mom," Max protested and Mrs. Evans shepherded Isabel back to her room.

"You can't fake a fever like that, Max," Mrs. Evans countered. "You're sister is actually sick."

Max glared at Isabel again, but she just stuck her tongue out at him.

* * *

Thursday night and Friday morning passed too quickly for the student of Roswell High School, and shortly after three o'clock on Friday afternoon, the parking lot of the high school was filled with people packing their cars up with tents, sleeping bags, and spare clothing.

Jeff Parker leaned against the car and watched as Liz and Maria talked in quiet voices. He couldn't hear their conversation, but judging by the way their eyes kept darting to the Evans' car, where both Michael and Max were standing, he had a pretty good idea of what they were discussing. It had been a while since he had actually spoken to his daughter about anything of substance, and he wondered vaguely how much of her life he was missing. Perhaps this camping trip would be a chance to remedy that mistake.

Mr. Parker was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of laughter, and he turned to see the Sheriff, Kyle, and Tess approaching. Tess look displeased with the trip, but Kyle actually looked excited, and was laughing at Tess' annoyance.

"Come on, Tess. It'll be fun. Just think, we can sit around the fire and tell ghost stories. We can roast marshmallows. We can…"

"Oh, stuff it, Kyle," Tess snapped, interrupting the football jock's statement.

"You should keep an open mind," the Sheriff commented dryly, taking his son's side in the argument.

Tess looked up at him and said sarcastically, "An open mind? About what? Lack of sanitation? Infestation with mosquitoes? Improperly cooked food? Sleeping on rocks and dirt?" She rolled her eyes and pointed out, "I've gone camping enough times to know it never gets any better."

"Good morning, Jeff," Jim greeted Mr. Parker with a nod.

Mr. Parker smiled at the Sheriff and noted that both Maria and Liz had stopped talking to observe his interaction with the Valentis. "I take it not everyone is so thrilled about this camping trip?" Mr. Parker said, giving Tess a brief look.

"Oh, no, Mr. Parker," Tess replied, her voice dripping with saccharine sweetness, "I'm so looking forward to this." Her gaze wandered around the parking lot until she managed to locate Trudy and Cliff, the only two of her friends who had decided to come on the trip. "Excuse me," she said politely and hurried off to complain to them.

"Tess isn't really the outdoor type," Kyle said as he watched her go.

Mr. Parker glanced back and Maria and Liz. They had turned their attention away from him and were staring at the Evans' car again. He sighed and shook his head.

"Dad? I'll be right back," Liz said abruptly, and began walking towards Max. He was standing with his back to her, talking to Michael about something, but Michael saw her approach, and must have mentioned it to Max, because he turned around and smiled at her.

"Hey," Liz greeted as she approached the two of them. "I hear Isabel's sick."

"I'm telling you, she's faking it," Max grumbled. "There is no possible way for her to be sick. We don't get sick. I've never had a fever in my life."

"Alex got out of coming also," Liz said. "He convinced his father that he didn't need to come."

"Wish I could convince my Dad not to go," Max commented. He glanced at the car where his father sat and sighed. His mother was supposed to come also, but Mrs. Evans had decided to stay home with Isabel instead.

"I still think we can use this to our advantage," Michael said in a hushed tone.

"What do you mean?" Liz asked, confused.

Max sighed and said, "Remember the map I told you I found at the UFO Center?" Liz nodded, and Max continued, "Remember how I said that symbol was marked on the map?" Liz nodded again, and Max glanced over at Michael. "Michael thinks it might be important. He thinks we should look into it."

"It was close to the woods, right?" Michael defended himself. Liz could tell from the weariness in his voice that he had been arguing this point with Max for a while now. "So we can go investigate it, and if anyone sees us, we'll just say we got lost."

"Pohlman Ranch is not that close to Fraiser Woods," Max protested.

"Yes, but this is the only chance we might ever have of getting this close. Max, you said it yourself, that symbol means something," Michael countered. "And it is better if we find out before Brody does."

"Unless, of course, he already knows what it means," Max muttered.

"What did Isabel and Tess think?" Liz asked curiously, interrupting the growing argument.

"Isabel thinks we should be careful," Michael replied grumpily. "Why go looking for trouble when trouble is looking for us?" He ran a hand through his hair and let out a frustrated breath. It was what Isabel always said. Out of the four aliens, she was the one least interested in investigating into their past.

Max shot Michael a pointed look and said emphatically, "Isabel is right."

"Tess wasn't against the idea, though," Michael shot back.

That surprised Liz, she assumed that Tess would have been less than thrilled with any of them taking a risk like this. "Really?" she asked.

Max frowned and glanced over to where Tess was standing, one hand resting on a hip, talking to Trudy and Cliff. "She wasn't for it either, though," he mused. "She just said she thought we should be careful about the risks we take. Make sure the end goal is worth it. But she didn't say whether or not this goal was worth the risk."

"But she wasn't totally opposed to the idea," Michael repeated stubbornly.

"She seemed distracted by something else," Max said softly, ignoring Michael's comment. "Worried about something."

"She'd tell you if it was alien-related," Liz said.

Max gave Liz a contemplative look and didn't reply.

* * *

"They're going camping?" Agent Pierce asked disbelievingly.

Agent Willis nodded. "Yes, sir. Agent Young and I have determined a list of everyone who is participating in this camping trip."

Pierce glanced over at Young, who was standing directly to his left. He was a newer member of the Special Unit and a bit green. His enthusiasm for his job had waned somewhat over the past few weeks, and Pierce could attribute that to some growing sympathy for the enemy. Young was a valuable asset, but could he really be trusted?

After the fiasco with Agent Topolski, Pierce was not so quick to trust any of his agents.

"Who is going?" Pierce asked finally.

"Max Evans and Michael Guerin, Liz Parker and Maria DeLuca, Tess Harding, Kyle and Jim Valenti."

Pierce considered this list carefully. Isabel Evans and Alex Whitman were the two noticeable abstentions. Still, if Michael Guerin was going, then there was a chance that Topolski would try to follow him into the woods. However, any attempt to locate Topolski or interrogate any of the suspects would have to be done cautiously because of the presence of the Sheriff. He was getting to be a problem, and sooner or later he would start prying a little too deeply into Topolski's disappearance. He knew that she was FBI, and Pierce didn't like to think what he could do with that bit of knowledge.

"What are your instructions?" Agent Willis asked.

Pierce sighed. "Pack your bags, gentlemen. You're going camping."

* * *

Tess leaned against one of the trees and watched impassively as Jim and Kyle struggled to set up their tent. The blue material kept pulling back against the stakes, snapping the bottom of the tent into the air and causing the zippered door to fold in on itself. They probably could have used another person to help with the set up, someone to hold the front of the tent in place.

Tess turned and walked away, weaving in and out of the trees as she circled the camping ground.

Next to Kyle and Jim, Maria and Liz were attempting to set up their own tent while Mr. Parker read the instructions from the info sheet the store had given them. After a few moments, Max walked over to the two girls and deftly grabbed one end of the tent, pulling it down to the ground in a swift motion.

"Liz, push the tent pole through the flaps near the top, it's gotten stuck," Max instructed, pointing with his free hand towards the tip of the tent.

Liz, balancing on her toes, managed to get the tent pole and pulled it down next to Max. As she bent over, she lost her balance, falling ungracefully onto Max. Still holding the tent to the ground, Max managed to catch her, and she started laughing as she tried to untangle herself and stand up again. Her expression sobered as she caught sight of her father watching her with a scrutinizing expression, and she quickly handed the tent pole to Max. He fitted it through the bottom ring of the tent and shoved it into the ground, stabilizing the tent.

"Come on, we've got to do the other three sides if you want the tent to actually stay up," Max offered, standing and brushing the dirt from his pants.

"You don't have to help us with this," Mr. Parker interjected. "I'm sure you have your own tent to set up."

Max glanced over to where Michael and his father were unloading the tent from the car. "It won't be ready for a few minutes, Mr. Parker, and I don't mind," he replied.

Mr. Parker nodded, but didn't say anything. His expression seemed a little distant, and Liz bit her lip worriedly. Max didn't seem to notice, and walked over to the next corner. Liz followed him reluctantly, still concerned.

"Hey, at least your boyfriend is trying to impress your father," Maria whispered, placing a comforting hand on Liz's shoulder. "That's good, right?"

But Liz wasn't so sure. Max wasn't doing any of this to impress her father, he was doing this because he was trying to be a good boyfriend. After their conversation earlier in the week, he'd been going out of his way to do small boyfriends things; to give her a quick kiss before class, to buy her something to drink at the Crashdown, to compliment her lip gloss or her shirt or necklace. In fact, Max seemed completely unaware of the hard gaze that Mr. Parker was now focusing on him, and Liz wasn't sure any of this was a good thing.

As Max and Liz set the final stake into the ground and the tent sprung into a stead upright pyramid, Michael and Mr. Evans settled their own tent onto the ground next to the Parkers.

"You want to camp here, Max?" Mr. Evans asked, his eyes darting between Max and Liz with a knowing smirk.

"Uh… sure Dad," Max replied, turning slightly red.

"Nice tent," Michael remarked as he surveyed the Parker's site.

"Max helped us set it up," Maria said, giving Michael a pointed glare.

Michael didn't seem to understand the glare. Instead, he turned to Max and demanded, "Why would set up their tent before ours?"

"I was just helping," Max said with a shrug as he turned to his father. "Here, let me do that, Dad," he offered quickly as Mr. Evans attempted to pull the tent from it's cloth bag.

"He was being a good boyfriend, Michael," Maria said through clenched teeth. "You know, helping his girlfriend's family set up…?"

Michael stared at her blankly, and Maria through up her hands in frustration and turned away.

As Michael, Max, and Mr. Evans started to work on their own tent, Tess came back from her tour of the camping ground. She glanced from the Valenti's tent to the other two neighboring families and remarked acerbically, "You pick wonderful people to sleep next to, Kyle."

Kyle glared at Tess and then glanced over at Liz and Max, who were laughing softly about something as Max knelt by the bottom of the tent and cleared away the rocks and sticks. He had hoped that Trudy or Cliff would end up next to him, and not Liz and Max. But Trudy and Cliff were on the other side of the camping grounds, having been beaten to the spot by Liz and Max.

"Well, it is the best camping spot, Tess," Jim remarked. "Closest to the water faucet, largest amount of space, grounds the flattest. You'd have to expect that everyone would be eager to get this spot."

"Jim, you and Kyle are the only two people who actually want to be here," Tess shot back before turning and disappearing into the crowd of Roswell High students again.

"Tess isn't really the camping type," the Sheriff explained to Mr. Parker and Mr. Evans. His eyes then fell on Michael, and he raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Mr. Guerin, it is quite a surprise to see you joining in with everyone else for the camping trip. I'm glad you chose to come."

Michael replied with a noncommittal, "Hmm," and then turned away from the Sheriff and stared at the woods around him.

"Lizzie, honey, can I talk to you for a moment?" Mr. Parker asked gesturing for his daughter to follow him as he stepped away from the others. Liz fell into step behind him, and they walked in a circle, edging around the border between the woods and the camping site.

"What did you want to talk about, Dad?" Liz asked when she realized her father wasn't going to start the conversation.

Mr. Parker hesitated, a thoughtful look on his face, and Liz knew he was choosing his words carefully. When he finally spoke, his voice was level and calm, but Liz could sense the underlying concern.

"So, tell me about Max Evans."

Liz let her gaze wander around them, taking in the trees and the milling students. She was unwilling to look her father in the eye, unsure of what she would find in his expression. Finally, she said, "He's a friend of mine from school. You know the Evans, Dad, so you must have interacted with Max before." Ever so slowly, she looked up at him, but he was now looking away from her, and she wondered what he had thought of her explanation.

"He's a friend?" Mr. Parker asked softly, his tone inflected with just a touch of disbelief.

Liz opened her mouth, then closed it. For a moment, she thought about playing innocent, about pretending to miss what her father was really asking. But she figured this conversation would come up sooner or later, and she might as well address it head on now.

"I'm sixteen, Dad. I'm allowed to date," she protested.

Jeff Parker stopped walking and stared at his daughter. He wanted to tell her that of course she was able to date, that he hadn't been implying anything to the contrary. He wanted to tell her that he was her father, and he couldn't help being overprotective, that he was trying to give her enough space to grow. He wanted to tell her that he didn't like the idea of her sleeping in a tent right next to Max's tent, and it wasn't that he didn't trust her, he just didn't like it. He wanted to tell her that he was worried because she used to talk to him about so much and now things seemed more distant, and he couldn't help but wonder if it was because of Max. He never understood what was going through her mind.

But the words died in his throat, and he just shrugged and replied, "I don't like him."

"You don't know him," Liz countered.

"Well, you've never brought him by for dinner or really introduced him to your mother and I. You've never talked about him. How can I know him?" Mr. Parker pointed out.

Liz looked briefly at her father, then down at the ground. "He's a great guy, Dad," she replied. "Just give him a chance, okay? You can get to know him on this trip." She stepped away from her father and walked back towards her tent. Mr. Parker stayed where he was and watched her leave in silence.

* * *

Night came faster than anyone had anticipated, and soon the air was chilly and filled the smoke of several small campfires. The high school students huddled together around the fires, roasting marshmallows and hot dogs, foil wrapped potatoes and corn, and drinking hot chocolate as they listened to each other's ghost stories.

At the Valenti-Parker-Evans' campfire, Kyle was telling a story, his voice lowered to a theatrical hush. "That summer," he whispered, "they found five cows, all of them mutilated with surgical precision on Haddie Wexler's farm. When she died two months later, they did and autopsy, and sure enough…" he paused for dramatic effect, "…they found perfectly bored holes in her skull just where she claims the aliens made them when they abducted her that night. The skull is buried deep within area 51."

"That's a good one, Kyle," Mr. Evans remarked with a shiver. Next to him, Max and Liz huddled against each other to keep warm. Mr. Parker kept glancing at his daughter, but Liz steadily refused to meet his gaze. Maria, claiming she had a headache, had gone to lie down in her tent, and Tess had opted to join Cliff and Trudy for dinner. Michael also had decided to skip the campfire, and stay in his tent as well, so the number of people listening to the story had dwindled.

Sheriff Valenti sat on the other side of Kyle, but he was paying little attention to his son's words. Kyle shot a quick look at his father, expecting some form of acknowledgement, but Valenti was lost in thought, and didn't notice his son's gaze.

"That was one of my grandfather's favorites," Kyle said casually, turning his attention back to Mr. Evans. "He told it all the time."

Valenti sighed and stood up. "I'm going to walk around and see what the other campers are doing. Maybe we can start up a game or something," he suggested. As he walked away from the cheerfully blazing fire, he thought of Kyle's story. He had stopped listening after the first few sentences, having already recognized the story and heard the ending. His father had loved the story, and it reminded the Sheriff, once again, of everything his father had sacrificed to chase aliens. Contrary to what many people thought, his anger was not directed at his father because the man had ruined his career, reputation, and family all for the sake of his beliefs, but because he hadn't seemed to care about what he was doing to everyone else. Jim would have gladly stood by his father while everyone was calling him crazy if only his father had ever asked for his help, ever shown any interest in his son. He hadn't spoken to his father since in years because he was tired of being continually reminded that he just wasn't important enough. He had sworn he would never do that to Kyle and Tess.

But now things were different. Now he knew that the FBI was here, that Ms. Topolski had somehow disappeared, that there were people in Roswell who might have supernatural powers. Now he knew his father had been right, And he felt the need to look into it further, to discover the truth about what was going on, but what if that hurt Tess and Kyle?

He just didn't know what to do anymore.

At the campfire, Kyle watched him go in silent frustration. He didn't know what his Dad was thinking, but this weekend had always been one of his favorite family activities, and he didn't want his father's melancholy mood to ruin it.

At that moment, Maria appeared, walking casually towards Max and Liz. She gave Mr. Evans a smile and Mr. Parker a brief nod and then took a seat next to Liz. Leaning across her best friend, she murmured to Max in a low voice, "I just went into Michael's tent to try to talk to him, see if he wanted to hangout or anything, and… he's not there."

* * *

The burst of light filled the air, hot and smelling like smoke and salt and something different, something foreign. The dark night was illuminated in a rush of brilliant white that faded away almost as soon as it had appeared. A hiker turned in surprise, narrowing his eyes as he tried to identify the source of the strange light. A fly fisherman packing his belongings for the day started at the unusual occurrence and looked around in confusion. Two different families in cars pulled over and clambered out of their vehicles, standing on tip toes and staring into the depths of the woods. But the group of Roswell High students and parents, engrossed in their own activities, missed the distant fading light, the sign that something extraordinary had just happened.

All save one.

Standing alone in a clearing deep within the woods, Michael turned his attention towards the strange sighting. After a moment's more hesitation, he continued walking, setting his path towards the part of the sky where he had seen the unknown light.

* * *

Next Chapter: Sights and Sounds of the Unknown

Due: Fri 3/2


	66. Sights and Sounds of the Unknown

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Alright, so this chapter finally starts the beginning of the revelation of many answers. It might not seem that way at first, but over the next four chapters, several (but not all) of the story's mysteries should start to unravel.

* * *

Chapter Sixty-Five: Sights and Sounds of the Unknown

"We need to find him before he does something stupid," Max growled in frustration as he repeatedly paced up and down the same stretch of dirt.

"We don't know where he is or why he left," Maria replied, annoyed at Max's obvious assumption that Michael would be getting into trouble. "How do you know he's doing anything bad? Maybe he just wanted to go for a walk."

"Or maybe he decided to go to Pohlman Ranch to investigate," Max shot back.

"What's at Pohlman Ranch?" Maria asked, confused and startled by Max's anger.

"We're not sure," Liz interceded, shooting Max a warning glance. She knew he was upset, but he didn't have to take it out on Maria. "Max found a map in Brody Davis' belongings that had that symbol… the one with the four squares and the x… on it. It was in the area labeled Pohlman Ranch."

"Brody Davis?" Maria asked, frowning. "The alien nut who bought the UFO Center?" She glanced from Max to Liz. "You think Michael is going to investigate the marking on that map?"

"I think it is possible," Max replied, turning away and glancing back at the campfire. Kyle was still sitting there, now joined by Tess, Trudy, and Cliff. The Sheriff was nowhere in sight, and Mr. Parker and Mr. Evans were talking quietly. He wondered if anyone would notice if they slipped away.

Liz, as though reading Max's thoughts, said firmly, "My Dad would notice if I was gone." She chewed her lip thoughtfully, then continued, "But he wouldn't notice so much if you and Maria left."

Maria frowned. "You want to stay behind? I'm not sure I like that idea."

Liz shrugged. "I don't either, but I don't think we really have a choice. I'll stay and talk to my Dad, that will keep him distracted. He's not going to notice that you aren't here, Maria." She glanced over at Max. "Will your father notice if you're gone?"

Max considered this. "Eventually," he admitted. "But since Michael is gone also, he'll probably just assume the two of us are hanging out somewhere around the camp. He won't start to worry for a while."

"Well, hopefully you'll find Michael and be back before anyone realizes you're gone," Liz offered with a slightly hopeful smile.

Max thought inwardly that, given the way their luck had been going the past few months, he really doubted that would happen. Aloud, he said, "Liz, tell Tess what's going on, tell her she'll need to cover for us if people start getting suspicious. She can buy us some more time with her gifts."

Liz glanced over at Tess, watching as the blonde laughed at something Kyle had said. She nodded hesitantly, wondering how she was going to relay that message to Tess without anyone else overhearing her or getting suspicious.

But Max had already turned to Maria and was talking to her in a hurried whisper, so Liz didn't have the chance to ask.

"We need to stay together, I don't want to split up in the woods. And keep your eyes open, I still don't trust that the FBI isn't around, even here," Max warned.

Maria nodded. "That's fine," she agreed readily, not particularly thrilled about the fact that they might have unwanted company. As an afterthought, she asked, "Do you do this a lot? Run after Michael, I mean? Because we've already done it once when he went to Texas to find Atherton's house."

Max sighed in frustration. "Yeah," he muttered under his breath. "We do it a lot." He turned away and from Liz and Maria and stared at the woods, trying to remember which direction would lead them to Pohlman Ranch. Finally he settled on east, and said to Maria, "We should go."

"Max…" Liz reached out and caught his hand briefly. He turned to look at her expectantly, and she abruptly leaned in towards him and placed her hands on his shoulders. Standing on her tiptoes, she kissed him quickly. "Be careful," she murmured.

Max smiled gently. "Don't worry, I'll be safe," he promised. "And so will Maria." With one last look at Liz, he turned and started walking towards the woods, Maria following close behind.

Liz sighed and ran a hand through her hair, then turned around, intent on heading to her tent.

Instead, she found herself face-to-face with Tess.

Liz changed a quick glance at the campfire. Kyle, Trudy, and Cliff were still there, talking animatedly, and paying no attention to either Liz or Tess. Sheriff Valenti had returned, and was talking to Mr. Parker and Mr. Evans. Once or twice, Mr. Parker glanced up at his daughter, but the Sheriff and Mr. Evans seemed to engrossed in the conversation to notice their wayward children.

"What's going on?" Tess demanded urgently, and Liz snapped her attention back to the petite alien.

"Michael's taken off, and Max thinks he went to look for the site marked on the map with that strange symbol," Liz explained.

"He's gone to Pohlman Ranch?" Tess asked. She didn't seem that surprised, and Liz remembered abruptly that Tess was also unsurprised when Michael decided to drive to Marathon on Maria's car. Tess seemed to be the one who most expected Michael to do something incredibly reckless. Or perhaps she was just very good at taking everything in stride.

Liz nodded. "Max and Maria went after him, and I stayed behind to make sure my Dad doesn't get too suspicious." Tess raised an eyebrow at that, and Liz elaborated, "He already doesn't like Max."

"I see…" Tess drawled with a smirk. "Obviously he has better taste than you do."

Liz glared at her but didn't take the bait. "Max wants you to cover for him. Use your gifts if anyone starts to notice his absence. Buy us some time."

Tess nodded and looked over her shoulder at the campfire. Kyle was staring at her, but Trudy and Cliff were still talking, unaware of her absence. Mr. Parker was watching Liz.

"Act normal," Tess muttered under her breath before turning on her heel and stalking away. As she rejoined her friends, Liz heard her say to Kyle, "Next time we're forced to do this, I get to pick who we camp next to."

Liz sighed and glanced back at the trees. She hoped Max would get back soon.

* * *

Michael stopped again and stared up at the stars. He was sure he was still walking in the same direction as the strange light he had seen briefly, but he wasn't sure if he'd miss it when he got there. It had been so quick, just a sudden flash, and Fraiser Woods was a big place. He could easily miss it in the dark, passing by the spot without realizing it. 

Still, he reasoned, if it was really something alien, he'd be drawn to it somehow, right? Perhaps some sixth sense would lead him where he wanted to go.

He started walking again.

And then the shadows of the trees moved around him, taking form and melting into a figure that stepped in front of him, blocking his path. Michael instantly lifted a protective hand, but recognition washed across his features as the moonlight fell on the face of the person in front of him.

"Ms. Topolski?" he stuttered.

"You're in danger, all of you," the ex-guidance counselor gasped out, clutching frantically at Michael's arm.

Michael backed away, his eyes narrowed as he scanned the trees for other FBI agents. Was this a trap? He wasn't about trust the woman who had done so much in an attempt to ruin all their lives.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said coldly.

"You shouldn't be here, you shouldn't be wandering around on your own. The best way to protect yourself is just to act like normal teenagers. And stay in a group," Ms. Topolski continued, her wild eyes staring up at Michael's face. "Do you understand?"

"We are normal," Michael protested, feigning ignorance. "You're the one who is acting crazy."

"I may have been followed," Ms. Topolski whispered, licking her dry lips. "I don't know how much time we have." She looked over her shoulder, saw nothing, and turned back to Michael. "Don't trust anyone," she warned.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Michael repeated.

Ms. Topolski let out a hiss of frustration. "Look, you can play that game all you want, but we both know it isn't true. If you listen to me, then maybe we might make it through this. He doesn't know I'm here, okay? So I don't have much time."

"Who's he?" Michael asked before he could stop himself. Then he mentally kicked himself for being stupid enough to ask that question instead of just playing innocent.

"Donald Pierce," Ms. Topolski replied. "He… I worked for him."

Michael considered this carefully. They'd heard the name Pierce before, both from the mysterious shape-shifter and when they broke into Ms. Topolski's apartment.

"Why would your boss care that you are here?" Michael asked, still stubbornly refusing to give anything away. "Why would he be here following you?"

"Did you see the light?" Ms. Topolski asked, changing the subject and spinning around, pointing behind her in the direction Michael had been walking. "Did you see it?"

"What are you talking about?" Michael questioned, pretending to be confused while his heart began to beat rapidly. Had she seen the sighting too?

"Did you see it?" Ms. Topolski asked. "Did any of you see it? Was it real?" Her breath came in short gasps. "If it was real, then Pierce will be following it. He'll be here. And the alien might be as well."

"The alien?" That caught Michael's attention, and he became instantly more alert.

"We had him in the white room since the crash," Ms. Topolski explained, looking back at Michael. "Since 1947. Pierce did experiments."

Michael shivered and asked softly, "White room?" Unbidden a memory came to mind, a flash of white, or unbearable pain. Michael looked away.

"It's at Eagle Rock Military Base," Ms. Topolski explained. "They kept him there, they experimented on him, but then he broke out. He killed. A silver handprint, Michael. Have you seen one before? That's what appeared when he killed."

Michael was about to reply when the sound of footsteps caused him to turn. Max and Maria appeared from the darkness of the trees, both holding flashlights in their hands, and when Michael turned back to look at the spot where Ms. Topolski had stood, she was gone.

"Michael?" Maria asked softly, moving to his side.

"Ms. Topolski," Michael said. "She was right here, just a moment ago."

Upon hearing those words, Max forgot that he was angry at Michael and demanded quickly, "Are you alright? Did she try to hurt you? What did she want?"

Michael gave Max a long stare and said slowly, "She wanted to talk…" And he began to relay what had happened.

* * *

"Lizzie?" Mr. Parker opened the flap of the tent and stepped inside. His daughter was lying on her stomach on the sleeping bag, reading a book. "What are you doing?" he asked, looking through the tent. The darkness was illuminated only by Liz's flashlight, and he could tell that Maria wasn't there. "Where's Maria?" 

"She's talking to some people at a different fire," Liz replied with a yawn. "I was really tired, so I decided I just wanted to read."

"And… Max?" Mr. Parker asked curiously.

Liz put the book down and stared up at her father. "He's hanging out with Michael somewhere," she replied, and smiled inwardly when she realized that that answer was technically the truth. "Dad, about Max… I really like him."

"I can see that," Mr. Parker replied. He remained silent for a moment, carefully picking through his choice of words. Finally, he said, "I haven't seen you that much, Lizzie."

"What do you mean?" Liz asked, confused. "We live together, Dad."

Mr. Parker sighed. "But we barely see each other. You're almost never around for dinner anymore, and I hardly ever see you on the weekends. You don't talk to me anymore, and… well, you're dating this Max Evans, and your mother and I… we've barely ever met the boy. You seem distant a lot, like you're slipping away from us. I'm worried about you."

"I'm fine, Dad," Liz replied. She stared at the tent floor for a moment, then continued, "Maria's mom was in that horrible accident, and then her father came to town. And Kyle and I… well, we broke up and it wasn't that pleasant. And things with Max have been rocky a lot lately. It's just I have so much going on right now. I'm not trying to shut you out, Dad, I promise."

Mr. Parker nodded. "I know, Liz. But you started drifting away from us the same time that you started dating Max. I just can't help but wonder if the two aren't related."

"Max is a good guy, Dad," Liz retorted.

"So you keep saying," Mr. Parker conceded. "But you've never brought him by, so how am I supposed to know that?"

"Can't you just take my word for it?" Liz pleaded.

Mr. Parker shook his head seriously. "No, I can't. With anyone else, maybe, but not with the boy you are dating. As you father, I have to meet him myself." He gave Liz a wink. "It's my job to threaten to hunt him down if he hurts you. I have to put the fear of God in him."

Liz laughed at her father's words. "I'll invite him over for dinner one night this week, Dad. And I'll try not to be so distant."

Her father kissed her on the forehead. "That's all I'm asking."

* * *

"You saw something alien?" Max repeated. He shook his head and stared at Michael in disbelief. "You saw something alien, Ms. Topolski also saw something alien, she came and found you, and told you a whole bunch of information about some alien that the FBI had kept locked in a white room for the past fifty years?" 

Michael nodded. "Yes," he said simply.

"Do we trust her?" Maria questioned, rubbing her hands up and down her arms to keep warm as the night air grew increasingly chilly.

"No," Max and Michael replied in unison.

Maria raised an eyebrow. "You're both very adamant about that," she commented.

"She came to school and tried to expose us," Max pointed out. "Her goal was to turn us over to this white room. I don't care if she says she's reformed, we can't trust her."

"I agree," Michael added. "Only two weeks ago she still had it in for us. She can't have changed her mind that quickly."

"We should go back to the camp," Max said, turning away from Michael and Maria and walking through the woods for a few steps. Michael's reply, however, stopped him in his tracks.

"No."

"What?" Max turned around to face Michael.

Michael walked over to Max and replied, "I saw something alien. I know I did. We have to find it before the FBI does."

"We don't even know if the FBI is out here," Max countered.

"We know Ms. Topolski is," Michael argued. "And we know she saw the same thing. She could be a threat. We need to find that sighting first."

"The last thing we need is for the FBI to find us at the site of something alien," Max reasoned. "And besides, I don't know how long our absence at the campsite is going to go unnoticed. We don't want to make anyone suspicious."

"This is the only chance we may have," Michael replied in frustration. He ran a hand through his hair and continued, "There is something out there and there is something important at Pohlman Ranch. We're never going to get a better opportunity to investigate this."

"Michael, you don't even know exactly where this strange light came from," Max pointed out logically. "And we don't know how to get to Pohlman Ranch from here. If we chased both the alien sighting and the weird symbol on the map, we'd get lost and then people would notice that we were gone. Be reasonable, this just isn't a good time."

"There's never a good time," Michael rejoined. "There's never going to be a good time, but this is a clue."

"A clue to what, Michael?" Max asked softly. "To a past we don't know anything about? To the identity of people who we probably should stay away from anyway?"

"Don't you want answers?" Michael hissed.

"Of course I do," Max snapped back, eyes flashing angrily. "But not at the cost of our safety. There is a shape-shifter, an FBI unit, a rogue guide counselor, and the Sheriff of Roswell out there all trying to figure out who we are. Our only chance at surviving this is to pretend that we're normal. Which we can't do if we wander around the woods in the middle of the night!"

Michael opened his mouth to say something, and then he stopped, frozen to the ground, and he realized in horror that something was wrong.

Max, seeing the terrified expression on his friend's face, instantly looked around, expecting to see the FBI charging through the trees. But there was no one there, and it took him a moment to realize what the problem was.

The problem was that there was no one there. _No one_.

Maria was gone.

Why would she have left without telling them?

Unless it wasn't by her own volition.

"She wouldn't have left on her own," Max said quietly. "But… shouldn't we have heard her?"

"She was a ways behind us when we were arguing," Michael pointed out. He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking. "You started to leave, and I argued with you and followed you. But Maria stayed where she was while we were talking." He pointed to a spot several feet away. "She was standing there." He walked over to the spot and reached down to pick up a fallen object.

Maria's flashlight.

"We have to find her," Max said, already moving through the trees.

"Do we split up?" Michael asked, unsure.

"If we split up, whoever is out there will have an easier time attacking us," Max said. Then he paused and sighed, "But if Maria is with someone dangerous, we need to find her quickly, and the only way to do that is to split up." Max trained his flashlight on the ground. "No footprints to give us direction," he muttered. The underbrush was too thick preserve the indentation of footsteps.

"You go left, I'll go right," Michael said. "Meet back here in twenty minutes?"

Max nodded. "Be careful," he warned, and then he disappeared into the trees. Michael stared at the direction he had gone for a moment, then turned and walked the other way, scanning the woods for signs of his girlfriend.

* * *

Ms. Topolski waited until she was sure that they were far enough away from Michael and Max before releasing her grip on Maria. Despite her small frame, she was incredibly strong, and Maria had been unable to fight off her vise-like hold. She'd wrapped one arm around the girls torso, trapping her arms to her sides and forcing her to drop her flashlight, and placed the other hand over her mouth, effectively cutting off her ability to make any noise. Then she'd dragged Maria into the woods while the two teenagers argued obliviously. 

Maria yanked herself away from Ms. Topolski and looked around. "What do you want?" she asked fearfully, trying to find a way to escape.

Ms. Topolski had a gun in her hand. Maria knew she couldn't outrun bullets.

"You need to listen to me," Ms. Topolski said. "Max and Michael wouldn't, but you will. You're smart, Maria. I know you'll listen."

"You kidnapped me!" Maria protested. "You're insane if you think I care what you have to say."

"Listen!" Ms. Topolski said again, reaching out and grabbing both of Maria's arms. Maria felt the cold metal of the gun brush against her skin as Ms. Topolski caught her arm, and she shivered in fear.

"What?" Maria asked, still trying to back away.

"Pierce. Donald Pierce," Ms. Topolski whispered. "He's following me. He wants me dead." She looked around and released Maria's arms.

"Is he FBI?" Maria asked. Ms. Topolski still had the gun in her hand, and Maria knew she wouldn't be able to escape quite yet, so she figured she might as well hear Ms. Topolski out.

"It's more complicated than that." Ms. Topolski ran a hand through her hair and shook her head. "He's part of the Special Unit. It's buried deep within the FBI. The president and the director themselves are on a need-to-know basis only." She looked around again, her eyes constantly wandering. Then she focused back on Maria. "Do you understand what I am saying? He answers to no one, and he is after you. And the others. Anyone who is connected to Max Evans, and anyone he thinks might stand in his way. You're on his list, Maria. You all are."

"Tell me about him," Maria said softly. "What does he want? Where is he? How does he work?"

Ms. Topolski shook her head. "I don't know how much I can tell you." She drew a shaky breath and closed her eyes for a moment. But then she opened them almost immediately and looked around again, worry etched onto the lines of her face. "He told me to come to Roswell. To find out everything I could about you. But he kept secrets. A lot of them."

"What sort of secrets?" Maria pressed,

"He kills people. Agents who fail, people who get in the way." Ms. Topolski shook her head. "He wants to kill me because I made a few mistakes. I didn't believe any of the rumors before, but now I do. He kills people, anyone he wants to, and there is no way to stop him. That's not why I became an agent, Maria."

"No, you became an agent to turn over four innocent teenagers to a unit you knew experimented on suspects," Maria spat, her face flushing red with anger as she thought of everything Ms. Topolski had told Michael. Pierce experimented on this shape-shifter and Ms. Topolski was willing to hand the four aliens over to the same fate.

"I thought you were the enemy," Ms. Topolski explained.

"Then why didn't you or Pierce just swoop in and take us?" Maria demanded.

"No solid proof. Fear of what you might do. There are other aliens out there, Maria. We _know_ there are. And they kill. They killed Andrew and Jessica Harding, so maybe they'll kill us too."

"You know who killed the Hardings?" Maria whispered.

Ms. Topolski shook her head. "No, but I've seen the pictures. I saw the silver handprint on their chests. It was an alien Maria. And not the shape-shifter, because he was in custody when they died. Someone else, some other alien." She grabbed Maria's arm again. "Trust no one. Do you understand? You can't trust anyone!"

"Then why should I trust you?" Maria asked.

"I don't have much time," Ms. Topolski whispered. "The alien sighting, I know Michael told you about it. Pierce is here, he has to be here. And he's going after that sighting. You need to be careful."

The sound of footsteps crushing the underbrush caused both Maria and Ms. Topolski to jump away from each other and turn around. Ms. Topolski switched on a flashlight and shown it at the dense trees, and pointed her gun in the other hand. Maria stumbled backwards.

"Hello, Agent Topolski, Ms. DeLuca," a cold voice announced.

Ms. Topolski's face paled. "Pierce," she murmured. She flipped her flashlight towards the sound of the voice, but Pierce was standing far enough back in the trees that the light did not illuminate the man's features. It did, however, reflect off the barrel of the gun he was pointing at them. Behind him, two other men stepped into view, agents Willis and Young.

Ms. Topolski did the first thing she could think of. She fired her gun.

Maria didn't wait to see what had happened, didn't want to see if Ms. Topolski's aim had been accurate. She turned and fled into the trees, the sound of more gunshots echoing behind her. The pounding of footsteps behind her signaled that she was being followed, and she chanced a glimpse back. It was one of the men who had come with Pierce, and he was drawing his gun.

Then his eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he collapsed to the ground. Standing behind him, a hefty tree branch clutched in both his hands, was Michael.

Maria faltered for a moment, then ran to Michael and threw her arms around him. He pulled her into a tight embrace.

"What happened? Are you okay?" Michael demanded.

Maria looked up at him. "Ms. Topolski had me," she whispered. "She was telling me things, and then Pierce and two other FBI agents came."

"Pierce? Did you see him?" Michael asked.

Maria shook her head. "He was in the shadows, I couldn't make out his features. But I saw the other two men, I saw their faces." She looked down at the unconscious agent. She could see his chest rising and falling, and indication that he was still breathing, still alive. "That was one of them."

"We need to get out of here," Michael said. "If Pierce and Topolski are still here, then it isn't safe." One arm still wrapped around Maria's shoulders, he lead her slowly away.

Maria leaned against him and let out a shaky breath. "Pierce tried to kill her," she said softly. She looked up at Michael. "She was telling the truth about him. He did want to kill her."

Michael nodded, but didn't say anything.

They walked in silence for a few more minutes., then Maria asked, "Do you have any idea where we are?"

Michael looked around the forest. He was supposed to meet Max back at the clearing in five minutes or so, and he was completely lost. "Yeah, I do," he lied. "We're meeting Max. It's this way." He nodded in the direction they were walking and wondered if it was even remotely close to the right way.

"What about the alien sighting?" Maria asked. "Shouldn't we look for that?"

Michael stared at her for a long time, then replied, "We need to find Max and get back to the campsite. You're not safe here."

Maria nodded slowly, then frowned, "You know, I think we're on the Reservation."

"What Reservation?"

"You know, the Native American one," Maria explained.

"How can you tell?" Michael protested. "The trees look exactly the same here as they do everywhere else. I mean…"

"Michael!" Maria cut him off as she stopped walking and put a hand on his arm. He turned and followed her gaze.

A few yards in front of them was the entrance to a cave. A tremor ran through Michael's body as he took a step forward. There was something about that cave, something… different.

* * *

Agent Pierce stared down at the dead body. Then he glanced back at Agent Willis. "Find Agent Young," he ordered. "I'll get rid of this..." he gestured to the body. 

Agent Willis nodded and hurried away into the woods.

Pierce returned his gun to the holster and pushed Ms. Topolski's lifeless body with the toe of his shoe. His lip curled in disgust. "One problem taken care of," he muttered to himself.

* * *

Max hadn't had any luck finding Maria, and now he was completely lost. He mentally berated himself for thinking it would be easy to backtrack his steps and find Michael again. The woods looked all the same in the dark, and even with his flashlight he couldn't discern his way back. 

He wondered if he was walking in circles.

And then he felt it. Some sixth sense, something pulling him a few steps to the left and a few steps forward through the trees and into the small clearing. The tangled roots and shrubs sloped away to reveal a tiny field of grass and the strange sensation kept telling him to keep walking forward.

He stepped onto the grass, and followed the pull of the feeling, followed it until he was standing in the center of the clearing and staring down at the ground.

The grass was burned away in the same symbol, the four circles with the spirals inside of them, the x blazoned into the ground between them.

"The sighting," he murmured, kneeling on the ground and running his hand over the charred grass. "Michael was right."

"I knew one of you would come," a voice said, and Max sprang to his feet and spun around, staring at the man who materialized from the shadows behind him. "I knew you would get my message. I am so glad that it is you who came, your Majesty. You are the one I most wanted to see."

"Who are you?" Max breathed.

The man stepped in the moonlight, and Max was able to make out nondescript brown hair, brown eyes, and tan face. He was of medium height and wore a pair of jeans and a plain white shirt.

"You can call me Nasedo," the stranger replied.

* * *

Alex knocked on the door and waited for a response, shifting from one foot to the other somewhat nervously. A moment later, Mrs. Evans opened the door and smiled at him. 

"Hello, Mrs. Evans," Alex said quickly. "I heard that Isabel wasn't feeling well, and I just wanted to stop by and see how she was doing. I know it's late, and I'll only stay a few minutes."

"Oh, Alex, that is so sweet," Mrs. Evans said. She stepped aside and ushered him into the house. "She's in her room right now, resting." She walked over to the coffee table and picked up a thermometer and a mug of tea. "I was just about to take these up to her, do you mind taking them instead? Her bedroom is on the second floor, first door on your right."

Alex accepted the items and smiled. "It's no problem," he replied and began climbing the stairs. He'd never been in Isabel's house before, and he had often wondered what it was like. The living room and stairs seemed like normal rooms, nothing strange or out of the ordinary. But, he reminded himself, neither of Isabel's parents knew what she really was, so it wasn't as though she could leave strange alien objects lying around.

He reached her room and knocked on the door. "Isabel? It's Alex. I have some tea for you. And a thermometer. I think your mother wants you to check you temperature again."

"Alex? Come in," Isabel voice called back, scratchy and hoarse.

Alex entered the room and found Isabel lying on top of her covers. Her face was flushed and her eyes were closed. On the bed next to her was a copy of the yearbook and a fashion magazine.

She opened her eyes briefly and smiled at him, pushing herself into a sitting position.

"I never get sick," Isabel muttered before a coughing fit took over. She gasped for air, struggling to fill her lungs with precious oxygen. This wasn't supposed to be a real illness. She'd faked the symptons before, heating up the thermometer with her gifts before giving it back to her mother. She just didn't want to go on that stupid camping trip, and this seemed like a good way of getting out of it. She'd been fine most of the day...

How could she possibly be sick now? This couldn't be real.

When she could speak again, she shook her head and whispered, "Max and I have never been sick a day in our lives."

"You're sick now," Alex replied. He handed her the thermometer. "Here, see what your temperature is."

Isabel nodded and stuck the thermometer under her thumb, then fell back onto the pillows. For a moment the room was completely silent, save for her raspy breathing.

Alex stared at Isabel, a small frown marring his forehead. She didn't look that great. Her skin was too read and she seemed rather weak. This was more than just a cold.

Isabel pulled the thermometer out of her mouth and stared at it, her eyes widening. She pushed herself up onto her elbows and shook her head. "This must be wrong," she muttered.

Alex walked over to her and looked at the thermometer. A small red 104 flashed on the dial.

Without thinking, Alex placed his hand on Isabel's forehead. "You're burning up!" he exclaimed as he felt the excruciating heat.

Isabel started coughing again, and then she twisted and looked up at Alex, her eyes wide. "Something wrong," she whispered, and as she said the words, her eyes changed, the whites momentarily expanding to completely cover the irises and pupils. The stayed that way for a moment, then changed back to normal, and she started coughing again.

Alex stared at her in absolute horror. Isabel was very sick, Max, Michael, and Tess were in the middle of the woods, too far away to help, and he had no idea what to do.

* * *

Next Chapter: Cave of Wonders 

Due: Sun 3/11


	67. Cave of Wonders

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: I know, I know, I'm a week late. In my defense, my sister, who I haven't seen in _forever_, came to visit and then I had three midterms (yuck) and I didn't have a chance to write at all. This chapter is pretty short, but the next one will be longer, and I promise it will have _a lot_ of answers.

* * *

Chapter Sixty-Six: Cave of Wonders

Michael took a few hesitant steps towards the dark opening of the cave. It was partially overgrown by tall grass and tangled weeds, but something about it drew him so strongly he couldn't turn away, and by the time he realized what he was doing, he had already walked into the entrance of the cave. Maria was at his side, and he turned to tell her to stay behind him, when an arm shot out of the darkness, twisting around Maria's shoulder, and pulling her away.

She disappeared into the gloom.

"Maria!" Michael cried out, panic filling his veins, and rushed forward, into the blackness. He lifted an arm, and a burst of white light flooded from his hand, filling the corners of the cave.

And old man stood in front of him wrinkled and gray with age. Long hair partially hid unreadable eyes. He did not seem worried by Michael's display of power, or even remotely surprised. He was holding Maria with one hand, but he his eyes were fixed on Michael.

"You have come," he whispered.

* * *

Alex pressed the cold washcloth against Isabel's head and glanced worriedly at the door. He'd snuck into the kitchen for a bag of ice and damp towels, and thankfully avoided Mrs. Evans. But he wasn't sure how long it would be before she came up the stairs to check on her daughter, and if Alex couldn't fix this in time, then the game was up. Mrs. Evans would want to take Isabel to the doctor, and he just couldn't let that happen, no matter what. 

Isabel's eyelids fluttered for a moment, her face twisted into an expression of pain and fear. He thought she was dreaming, she'd slipped in and out of consciousness so many times in the past half-hour. During that time, he'd called Max, Maria, and Liz several times, but none of them had answered. He supposed their cell phones were out of range, it wasn't like the reception was all that good in the middle of the woods.

But he desperately needed to talk to someone.

He glanced around the room again. A glass of water sat on the table at the side of the bed, and he couldn't remember if it had been there before, or if he had brought it up himself. The bed spread was rumpled, the sheets twisting around Isabel's body as she shifted in her sleep, moaning. The fashion magazines had fallen to the ground, as had the yearbook. One of the pillows had somehow migrated to the foot of the bed, the other was tucked tightly under Isabel's head.

Alex placed a hand on Isabel's forehead and felt the excruciating heat.

He sighed and reached for his own phone again, then paused. Searching the room, he located Isabel's purse hanging on the corner of the chair by her desk. He stood up and walked over to it, then riffled through it until he found what he was looking for.

Isabel's cell phone.

He only had Liz, Maria, Max, and Isabel's numbers. But Isabel would probably have Michael and Tess' numbers, and maybe their phones had reception, even if the others did not. It was a long shot, but he didn't really have any other ideas.

He flipped open her phone and began to search through her address book.

* * *

Max stared guardedly at the strange man. The night was cold, and the sound of rushing wind slipped through the trees, rattling the branches. His heart was beating frantically, a rapid pulse thumping against his chest. He drew a slow breath. 

"Your name is Nasedo?" he asked softly, his eyes moving to the right and to the left. There didn't appear to be anyone around, but he wasn't sure if that was just another trick. Was this strange man alone, or was this a trap?

"It is one of the many names I have been called," Nasedo replied. He stepped closer to Max, and the brunette alien could discern yellow eyes and a cold smile.

"What do you want? Why are you here?" Max asked.

"I'm here to help you," Nasedo answered. He glanced around the clearing. "I'm sorry I've had to be so secretive in the past… I fear I terrified the others with my calls and dream contact. But there are many enemies around, and I didn't want to draw attention to myself. Or to you four."

"You're the one who's been talking to Isabel, Alex, and Tess?" Max pressed. He thought of the conversation Alex had reported a week ago, and asked, "Did you kill Hank as well?" Here was a chance to get some answers, he only wished he knew whether or not this man was trustworthy. How could he tell if anything the shape-shifter said was true?

Nasedo didn't answer for a moment. At last, he said, "I am trying to warn you. They are close."

"Who?" Max questioned curiously.

Nasedo wrinkled his nose in distaste. "The FBI," he replied. "Agent Donald Pierce." As he said the name, his eyes darted back and forth, as though afraid that merely saying the words would cause the agent to appear.

"Who is Pierce?" Max demanded. In the distance, a coyote howled. A tuff of clouds floated over the moon, temporarily darkening the night.

"He is a man to be afraid of. He is the one who first saw me," Nasedo replied. He opened his mouth, as though there was more to say, then closed it abruptly and glanced around. "I can't stay much longer, they are here, in the woods. We are in danger."

Max thought of Maria and paled. While he was standing here, trying to get answers from this mysterious alien, Maria could be in grave danger.

"Your friend is safe," Nasedo said.

Max narrowed his eyes. "Did you read my thoughts?" Even as he said the words, he knew the answer. Hadn't Tess always told him that mind-reading was impossible, even to the most powerful alien out there? The brain was simply not set up in a way that allowed it to be 'read.'

Nasedo gave a derisive snort. "Of course not," he answered contemptuously. "But you wear your fears all too openly in your expression. A habit you will need to change, if you have any hope at all of winning this war."

"War…?"

"Listen," Nasedo continued, ignoring Max's shocked question. "Listen, for I have much to tell you and little time. The four of you must stick together, there is no other way for you to win."

"Win what?" Max hissed in frustration. "Who is this war against?"

"Your enemies," Nasedo replied, as though the answer was obvious. Max rolled his eyes, but before he could say anything, Nasedo was already talking again. "There are many who would seek to destroy you, and they are drawn to you. Your plan of hiding in plain sight, it won't work for much longer. You must be prepared."

Max was tempted to ask what they should be prepared for, but he wasn't entirely sure he wanted the answer.

"The FBI are dangerous, but even if you should survive them, the other will come. They've been looking for you, and they won't rest until you are dead."

"Are they the ones that killed Atherton?" Max questioned, his gaze sliding to the ground as he looked at the symbol that had drawn him here. "And what is this symbol?"

"That symbol is who you are," Nasedo replied. "It represents the four of you." His yellow eyes fixed Max with a piercing stare. "I do not know who this Atherton is, but the others have killed before. They will do anything to break you, but they are terrified of you as well."

"Why? Why do they want to kill us?" Max couldn't understand how he could be a threat to anyone. They were four teenagers, and, alien or not, they didn't pose a threat to anyone.

"Because they are your enemies," Nasedo said, his tone once again suggesting that Max should have been able to figure that answer out on his own. "But I am your friend," he added.

Max thought inwardly that for someone who claimed to be a friend, he was being very frustrating at the moment. "Why should I trust you?" he said at last. "Like you said, there are enemies all around."

Nasedo's lips spread into a thin smile and his eyes shone with pleasure. "That is a wise comment," he remarked. "You have learned to be cautious." He looked at the surrounding trees again. The clouds had passed away from the moon, and the faint light cast long shadows in the dark. "I was sent to help you, to protect you."

Max frowned inwardly. Something about that statement seemed off to him, but he didn't even realize what he was saying until he had accused, "But you have your own agenda."

Nasedo laughed softly, a grating sound. "Of course," he replied. "But I do want to protect you against the others." Every word he said was true, but Max knew there was more to the story than just that. He was concerned about the things this Nasedo did not say.

He wanted to ask a thousand more questions, but he had been gone a long time, and he didn't know if Maria and Michael were safe. Hesitating, he glanced around the clearing. Finally, he said slowly, "I need to find my friends. If you are truly on our side, how do we contact you if we need you?"

Nasedo smiled. "If you need me, I will find you," he replied, then melted backwards into the shadows, disappearing from view.

Max stared at the spot the strange alien had stood, then bent down and ran his hand over the symbol burnt into the ground, erasing it. With one last look at the clearing, he turned and walked away.

* * *

Maria twisted away from the other man, but he wasn't holding on to her anymore. He seemed to have forgotten about her entirely, and was simply staring at Michael with what could only be considered resignation. 

Michael pulled Maria towards him, one hand wrapped protective around her arm. "Who are you?" he demanded, staring at the other man in front of him, suspicion darkening his eyes.

"You can call me Riverdog," the man replied. "I knew one day you would come."

Michael and Maria exchanged a worried look, but Michael was too curious to let the opportunity slip away, despite the dangers. He wanted Maria to leave, though, and opened his mouth to say so. Before he could form the words, however, Maria lifted her eyes to him and, sensing what he was about to say, whispered, "I'm staying."

Michael nodded reluctantly.

"I knew people like you once," Riverdog said as he gestured for Michael and Maria to step further into the cave. Michael hesitated, then took a few unwilling steps, Maria at his side. Riverdog smiled at them, and continued, "I don't know where they came from. But I know what they were searching for."

"What?" Michael asked.

Riverdog turned and pointed to a symbol on the wall behind him. It was painted in dark black that stood out against the reddish stone.

It was the same symbol, the one they had seen over and over again.

"These people," Michael pressed, "how long ago were they here?"

"About ten years ago," Riverdog replied. "They trusted no one, but they spoke to me. They wanted answers." He turned away. "I didn't trust them. They had already killed. I could see it in their eyes. And then they told me."

"Who had they killed?" Michael asked, but he was almost positive he already knew the answer.

"A man who lived in Texas," Riverdog replied. "A man with the answers they sought. Atherton." He was silent again, as though weighing his words carefully. "They said he was a threat."

"He was some kind of UFO nut. Maybe he was trying to expose them," Maria murmured to Michael. She was quiet for a moment, remembering something else. "Michael, if they are the ones who killed Atherton… you said when you went into Atherton's house you felt that their was a nonhuman danger there. Does that mean these people want to kill you too?"

Michael shook his head slowly, unsure of the answer. "Did these people say what they wanted with…" Michael gestured to the symbol on the wall, "that sign?"

Riverdog stared at the connected circles. "No. But they felt that they were close to something. They came here because they felt… a pull. Like the one that had drawn them to Atherton's house."

Unbidden, thoughts of the orb in Atherton's house came to Michael's mind. Ten years ago, he realized, would coincide with the time that they were emerging from their pods. Was that what the strange aliens had sensed? Was that what had brought them to Roswell? And in that case, what was the connection between them emerging from their pods and the orb Atherton had?

"Did you see it?" Michael asked, gesturing towards the woods behind him. "Did you see the sign tonight?"

Riverdog nodded. "Someone is here," he said guardedly. "Someone with secrets."

"That sighting… have you seen it before? The person who is here… is he one of the people who had come before?" Michael asked quickly. He was almost positive it was the shape-shifter that had created that strange light he had seen, almost positive that it was some sort of message for them. He just wished he knew what it was.

Riverdog shook his head. "The people who came before were only here for a year. They left, and I never saw them again."

"But maybe they came back," Michael pressed in frustration. The old man appeared to enjoy talking in riddles and fragments that made no sense.

"No," Riverdog repeated. "The man who is here is not one of them."

"How do you know that?" Maria interrupted. "How do you know who he is? Have you met him?"

Riverdog shook his head. "I know things," he said serenely. "The man who is here now… they spoke of him, but they did not like him. They said he would come. They called him the Protector, but he only protects himself."

"So this Protector is here now, but you've never seen him before?" Michael concluded. "Why is he here?"

"He is here because you are here," Riverdog replied. "But he is late. The people thought he would come earlier, years earlier. They were afraid. But he did not come, and they left."

"Where did they go? Why did they leave?" Michael asked, confused. If they had been there ten years ago, why had they never made contact? If they were enemies, why hadn't they attacked?

Riverdog shrugged, still staring at the strange symbol. "They did not say. I only knew that they had found something else." He turned his attention back to Michael. "They wrote the symbol on the wall. It meant something to them. Does it mean anything to you?"

Michael stared at it. "Yes. It seems… familiar. Like I know what it means, but I can't remember."

"Do you think it is some sort of language?" Maria questioned, her eyes moving back and forth between Michael and the Native American.

Michael didn't answer.

Riverdog said, "They seemed to know that you would come. That you would be drawn to this as well. They were waiting for you, but then you did not come, and they left."

"They gave up waiting for you?" Maria asked. "If they were really enemies, why would they just leave you?"

"They were close to something," Riverdog said. Then his voice turned firm and he said, "I have shown you all I can. You must go now."

"Can we come back?" Michael questioned.

Riverdog shook his head. "No. I have nothing else to tell you. Go, you are in danger if you stay."

Michael turned to go, leading Maria from the darkness of the cave. Through the entrance way in front of them, Michael could see the stars, tiny dots of white light in the black sky.

"Wait, wait," Riverdog said abruptly, catching Maria's wrist. She let go of Michael and turned back towards the other man. He was staring at her with intensity burning in his eyes. "You're not one of them," he whispered, so low that Michael could not hear his words.

"Maria?" Michael called.

Maria turned and looked at him, but Riverdog still held her wrist.

"Make sure he deserves your trust," Riverdog warned, then he let go of her arm and disappeared backwards into the darkness of the cave.

* * *

Tess rubbed her weary eyes and glanced around the campsite. She'd been dropping fake images of Michael, Max, and Maria into people's heads for the past couple hours, and she wasn't sure how much longer she could keep it up. When they all went to bed, she wouldn't be able to mind-warp anymore. Mr. Evans would notice his son and Michael were gone, and Mr. Parker was bound to notice Maria's disappearance. 

She silently prayed that they would be back soon. After a moment, she sent up another silent prayer that they were alright.

The harsh ring of her phone caused her to jump in surprise. She reached into the front pocket of her coat and pulled out the phone. She only had one bar of service out here, but she knew it was more than some of her friends had.

Recognizing Isabel's number, she frowned slightly and answered the phone, stepping away from the campfire and lowering her voice.

"Izzy?"

"No… Alex… Isabel… very sick… not sure what to do… no reception…"

The voice was scratchy, the line filled with static and white noise. But Tess recognized Alex's soft voice, and could plainly hear the worry in it. Although she couldn't hear all the words, she was fairly certain that Alex had just informed her that Isabel was very sick.

Was that even possible? They didn't get sick.

"Alex, say that again," Tess directed, walking closer to the darkness of the trees. With any luck, no one would notice that she'd slipped away until after she could get information from Alex.

"Isabel… eyes turned white… fever… flushed… very sick! Don't know what to… can't reach… help?" Alex's voice was rising in panic, and Tess felt fear flood through her veins.

Then the single bar of reception flickered and died, and the call went dead.

* * *

Next Chapter: Memories Consume 

Due: Sun 3/25

Author's note: So there, have been some questions about the shape-shifters. Just to clear everything up, there is only one shape-shifter currently in Roswell, and that's Nasedo, also refered to as Sean and the Protector (by Riverdog). There is then another group of aliens that we don't really know much about, except that they are the ones who killed Atherton and ran into Riverdog, and they are enemies of the Royal Four. More will be explained about them as we go on, but like the show, they won't actually show up in person in my story until the "second season." Lastly, Tess' first parents were killed by aliens. We don't know who killed them (yet) but we do know that it was definitely not Nasedo because he was in the white room at that point, and did not break out until after this story had already started. I hope that answers all the questions, and leave me a review if you're confused by anything else.


	68. Memories Consume

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: _Italics_ are dreams. They might not make sense in this chapter, but I promise that Isabel's sickness will be completely explained in the next chapter, as will the conversations between Michael and Riverdog, and Max and Nasedo.

* * *

Chapter Sixty-Seven: Memories Consume

"_What are we doing?" Max whispered, glancing about quickly, dark eyes filled with apprehensive worry. "It is after midnight, Father will be furious if he knows we are up and about."_

_Isabel shot him a contemptuous look and replied, "Oh, hush up, Brother." She padded softly along the plush white carpet of the hallway, glancing at the tapestries that hung on the walls. "You worry far too much." _

_Max bit his lip and stopped walking. "I just don't want to get in trouble," he pouted._

_Isabel rolled her eyes at him. "You are such a baby," she said derisively, playing with a strand of her long blonde hair. Max stared back at her, tears pooling in his eyes at her taunt, and she added mockingly, "Oh, are you afraid? Is the little prince afraid of Daddy?"_

_Max pulled himself to his full height and retorted, "I am not afraid!" Then his features fell. "I just don't feel like doing this right now," he continued, his voice back to a hushed whisper._

_Isabel shook her head. "All we are doing is sneaking into the study," she admonished. "Just to look at the maps and things…"_

"_Which Mother and Father said we were forbidden from looking at. They said we are not old enough. What if the servants catch us?"_

"_Then we will order them to let us go," Isabel gave a shrug. "They are our servants, they have to…"_

"_They will report us to Father. They are his servants before they are ours," Max replied quickly, pointing out what they both knew was true. They had been caught sneaking into places they were not supposed to be on numerous occasions, and the news of their exploits always got back to their parents._

_Isabel shrugged and gave her brother a pitying look, but as she turned back around, the hem of her gown caught on the jutted edge of a sculpture near the window, and tore along the seam, pulling the sculpture forward. It fell, and smashed to the floor, shattering into tiny fragments of stone and glass._

_Footsteps echoed in the hall as several servants rushed to respond to the noise. Max and Isabel turned on their heels and ran, trying to avoid the servants. But they soon heard footsteps coming from in front of them as well, and they halted, realizing they were trapped._

_The door next to them swung open, and a head poked out of it. Blonde curls fell over sleepy blue eyes, and Tess frowned, taking in the two guilty expressions before her. Then she turned and listened to the footsteps, a knowing smile crossing her lips._

"_In here," she ordered, and the two slipped by her into the room. She closed the door just as the servants arrived in the empty hallway._

* * *

Liz jumped in surprise as a hand landed on her shoulder. She spun around, fully expecting to be facing either her father, angry at having discovered Maria's absence, or Mr. Evans, angry at realizing that Michael and Max were gone. 

Instead, she found herself staring at Tess, who rolled her eyes and said mockingly, "A little jumpy, aren't you?"

"They've been gone a long time," Liz said softly, glancing around worriedly. Many of the families were starting to go to bed, and it was only a matter of time before they realized that three students were missing.

"Yeah, whatever," Tess said dismissively. She was, in fact, very worried herself, but she didn't have the time to dwell on it. She had to find out what exactly was going on with Isabel, and to do that, she had to stop covering for Max, Michael, and Maria.

Liz frowned in frustration, and opened her mouth to say something about how important it was that they avoid suspicion, but Tess had continued speaking before she could put in her own two cents.

"I need you to cover for them now, alright? I can't do the mind-warps anymore, I have something else to worry about. So if people start asking questions, just… I don't know, make something up. Got it?" Although it was phrased like a question, it was clear from her tone that she wasn't actually giving Liz a choice in any of this. She'd already moved away before the brunette had a chance to process everything.

"Wait. What do you mean? You can't just stop doing this," Liz said, moving towards Tess and grabbing her arm. "What are you thinking?"

Tess gave Liz a look that could have frozen water. "Just do it," she spat, and yanked her hand out of Liz's grasp. Turning, she slipped away, melting into the darkness of the night.

Tess paused outside of the camping site, just beyond the first ring of trees. She'd be safe from prying eyes here, she knew, and no one was going to come looking for her for a while because she told Kyle she was going for a walk to see what the rest of the woods around them looked like. He'd expect her back in fifteen minutes or so, but that was long enough to accomplish what she needed to do.

She sat down on a stone and stared around her. The moon and stars cast a faint enough light to just barely illuminate the trees. Shadows moved across the ground. It was almost creepy, and this being Roswell, she wouldn't have been surprised if a band of aliens had suddenly leapt out of the dark.

But she was just being paranoid, and she had other problems to worry about. Closing her eyes, she let her mind wander, reaching out and attempting to sense the emotions around her.

Liz was angry.

Kyle was flirting with someone, and after a moment she determined that the someone was Trudy.

Cliff was bored.

Mr. Evans was excited. She remembered that he had been playing cards. Maybe he had a really good hand?

Jim was tired, and so was Mr. Parker, but the two were talking to each other quietly, apparently not ready to go to bed yet.

Tess let her eyes flicker open. She had been able to sense people's emotions for several years now, and it was one of her more developed gifts. That, and mind-warp. She'd worked on them harder than any of the smaller things, molecular rearrangement and blowing up things, simply because they were often far more useful for her. Of course, they were also far more draining, and she'd never before attempted what she was about to do.

She closed her eyes and let her mind drift again, this time pushing it beyond the camp. It was like running under water, the current kept pushing her backwards and away, but she held on, struggling to reach her intended goal.

But it was so far away, and she only ever used these gifts on people who were close to her.

Her eyes snapped open as the last of the energy drained away. She hadn't made it that time, but she wasn't about to give up. She waited until her heartbeat and breathing had returned to normal, then closed her eyes and tried again.

She needed to do this. She needed to find out what was wrong, and they didn't have good enough cell phone reception in the woods for her to call.

But she couldn't get far enough. Her strength ran short again, and she slipped to the ground, resting on her hands and knees, gasping for breath. The world spun for a moment, and she felt dizzy and nauseous, but she shook the feelings aside.

She needed more energy, more power.

Closing her eyes, she directed her emotions towards something else. Somewhere, deep in those woods, was an energy source she could tap if only she could find it.

* * *

They'd been walking in circles, over and over and over, and Maria wondered whether or not they would actually ever find the campsite again, or would they be condemned to travel in circles in this forest until they died of hunger. Wasn't there a ghost story like that, someone who got lost in the woods and died from starvation and whose ghost then haunted the place, luring campers away deep into the forest? 

Maria shook her head quickly, chasing away the morbid thoughts.

Michael's expression was blank, and his mind was clearly far away, mulling over different thoughts. Once or twice, Maria had tugged at his sleeve and gotten a reassuring smile in response, but the smile was always slight vague, as though Michael was only partially aware of her presence.

Obviously, whatever the strange Native American had been talking about in that cave, it made more sense to Michael than to Maria. She'd found it all confusing, a bunch of half-clues and hints that didn't really lead anywhere. But Michael seemed to have reached some conclusion from what he had heard, and she wished he would share it with her. The silence was disturbing.

And then Michael froze, one arm flinging out quickly to stop Maria in her tracks. She looked at him, then looked around, trying to locate what had worried him so much. The woods appeared to be empty, but it was dark. Was someone hiding in the shadows?

"Michael?"

Michael didn't answer Maria's question, instead focused on the tiny sensation that worked its way through his mind. He could feel the other presence, and after a few moments of scrutinizing it, he knew who it was.

"Max?" he called out softly. Even though he lowered his voice, the trees were so still that the word echoed, seemingly magnified in the night air.

"Michael?" Max's voice called back in response, and a moment later, the other alien stepped out from between the twisted trees, relief flooding his features as he caught sight of his friends. "I thought I sensed your presence."

Michael offered a grim smile. "Me, too," he agreed.

Max turned to Maria hurriedly. "Are you alright?" he asked, worried, incredibly thankful that she had been found. "What happened?" He took a few steps towards her as he asked the question, scanning her body for any cuts or bruises or other injuries.

"I'm fine," Maria said quickly, waving off Max's concern. "Just a little shaken up. I had a run in with Ms. Topolski and Donald Pierce."

Max's face paled as he recognized the name. Pierce. Hadn't the strange alien warned them about this FBI agent? Warned them that he was closer than they thought?

"And then we had a little adventure in a cave," Maria added, slanting a look at Michael. He nodded slowly, and she continued, "So it's been a pretty exciting night for us." Her words dripped with sarcasm, and Max felt a grin tug at his lips.

"Yeah, me too," he replied, thinking again of Nasedo.

"What happened to you?" Michael demanded gruffly, raising an eyebrow.

Max glanced around. "We can't stay here," he said quickly. "We need to get back to camp, before…" He didn't have to finish the sentence, they all knew that Tess and Liz would only be able to cover for them for a limited amount of time. Pointing in the direction he had come, he added, "I'm pretty sure it's that way."

Michael shrugged. Under normal circumstances, he would have argued with Max, just for the sake or arguing. But he was hopelessly lost, and they were racing the clock, so he opted instead to simply follow Max's instructions without comment. Linking his fingers through Maria's hand, he followed Max into the trees.

"So, what did you mean about an adventure in a cave? And what happened with Ms. Topolski and this Pierce guy?" Max asked as they walked, his eyes constantly scanning the area, his senses constantly alert. The last thing they needed right now was to run into another unwelcome visitor.

"What did you mean about having an interesting night yourself?" Michael shot back.

Max ran a hand through his hair. "You tell me your story and I'll tell you mine," he replied, and Michael shot him an annoyed glare.

"I asked first," Michael snapped.

"No, you didn't," Max replied, rolling his eyes.

Maria shook her head, and wondered if Michael and Max would ever be able to have a serious conversation without bickering. Ms. Topolski had kidnapped her and Agent Pierce had tried to kill her and then she and Michael had ended up in a cave with some crazy Native American who had apparently spoken to other aliens before. Was it really that important which of the two of them told their story first?

However, before she could even voice her concerns, Michael suddenly fell to his knees, mouth open in surprise. Maria, too surprised to move, just stared as the color slowly drained from his face. Max was at his side in a moment, but before he could do anything, he too slid to the ground, shocked mirrored in his eyes.

"Michael! Max. What's wrong?" Maria screamed hysterically, reaching out towards them.

But Max pushed her hand away and shook his head. "We're fine," he gasped, closing his eyes. "Just… wait." He didn't look fine, and neither did Michael, so Maria opened her mouth to protest. But Max spoke again before she could voice her concerns, explaining, "Give… us a moment… to… rest… okay? She's using… our energy… she must really need… something's wrong… just… let her finish…"

The broken sentence made absolutely no sense to Maria, but Max was adamant, and she didn't know what she could do to help them anyway.

* * *

"_Good morning, Princess," Tess commented as she entered the room. She carried a deep crimson dress in one hand and a satchel of makeup in the other. _

_Isabel stood swiftly and stepped away from her vanity. "I wish you would not call me that," she reprimanded her friend. "One day you will outrank me."_

_Tess laughed. "One day, perhaps, but not today." She held out the dress in her arms. "What do you think?"_

_Isabel peered at the dress. "This is nice," she decided, nodding and allowing Tess to help her into the dress. "I must look my best for the dance this evening."_

"_Who is coming?" Tess asked curiously, her fingers moving swiftly to lace the back of the dress._

_Isabel twirled in front of the mirror and studied her reflection. "Only everyone worth knowing," she said happily. She turned, and reached for the makeup satchel in Tess' hand. Settling herself in front of the vanity mirror again, she began to apply the makeup carefully. "It will be a night to remember." She shot a mischievous look at her friend. "Perhaps I will meet the love of my life and live happily ever after."_

_Tess shook her head in amusement. "Perhaps," she agreed. She walked over to the window and threw the shades open, letting the light stream into the room. From the window, she could see the main road twisting up from the city, weaving towards the main gates and through the garden to the entryway below them. Two men were walking towards the entryway, and she frowned at them. "There are two men here I do not recognize," she remarked._

_Isabel joined her at the window. Although they were on the second story of the building, they could still see how handsome the two young men were. One seemed to be older and more mature, perhaps in charge. The other boy listened intently to everything his companion said._

_Isabel scrutinized the crest on the older boy's shirt. "That is the Crest of Illyria," she announced. "The Lord of Illyria has two sons who I have not met before. Perhaps these are them, and they have been invited to join the party."_

_Tess nodded. "Do you know their names?"_

"_Yes. The older is Khivar, the younger Nicolas," Isabel replied quickly. "I believe Illyria means 'fair' in the old language." She studied the boys for a moment, then sent Tess a smile. "They live up to their family name quite well."_

_Down below, the older boy paused, as though sensing he was being observed. He looked up at window, and saw the two girls watching him. Smiling airily, he bowed to them, and gestured for his brother to do the same._

* * *

Tess released the tenuous hold she had had on Michael and Max's strength, and hoped that she'd not done them too much harm. The extra power had served it's purpose, however, and she had managed to get a faint read on Isabel's emotions. 

Fear, confusion, pain, helplessness…

From what Tess could tell, it had appeared that Isabel was trapped within something. Something strange, and constantly moving, shifting images…

She hadn't really been able to see what it was, but it had felt like…

A dream?

Tess stood up slowly and stretched her aching muscles. Although her gifts were controlled by her mind, they often drained strength from her body as well, and she was incredibly exhausted.

But Isabel was in trouble.

Had she been dream-walking and gotten caught somewhere? Was that even possible? Or had she actually gotten sick, and her mind had decided to delve into dreams to escape the illness? Was the root problem mental, emotional, or physical, and how were they suppose to stop it?

She needed Max and Michael, and she needed them soon. She could only hope that the fact that she drained their powers would give them a clue that something was really wrong, and they would come back as soon as possible.

* * *

Michael groaned and pulled himself to his feet, leaning over slightly and resting his hands on his thighs. Max, too, pushed himself up and slowly staggered over to a tree. He rested his head against the tree and closed his eyes for a moment, taking a few deep breaths. 

"What do you think was wrong?" Michael asked at last, shifting his gaze so that he was looking up at Max.

"I don't know," Max said thoughtfully. "But we'd better head back to find out."

"What just happened?" Maria demanded, hands on her hips, her voice slightly higher from fear and nerves.

"Tess," Michael explained. "She used her gifts to tap into our energy." He looked at Max for a moment, then straightened up. "Must have been serious if she took that risk."

Max nodded. They needed to get back.

* * *

Alex sat on the edge of the bed and stared at Isabel's pale face. Her blonde hair, sticky with sweat, fell limply over her features. He brushed a few strands away and felt the heat rising from her skin. He reached for the damp wash cloth and pressed it gently on her face, trying to dab away the beads of sweat. She moaned in her sleep, and Alex bit his lip, feeling helpless, and hating it. 

And then the door swung open.

Alex jumped in surprise, swinging around to stare at Mrs. Evans, who was standing in the doorway, her eyes pinned to Isabel's body.

"Oh… _Isabel_!" Mrs. Evans rushed to her daughter's side, worry etched into the lines of her face and reflected in her eyes. "I have to take her to a doctor…"

Alex was supremely grateful that Isabel was asleep, and wouldn't open her eyes. He didn't want to risk having her display completely white eyes to her mother. Still, he had to talk Mrs. Evans out of taking Isabel to a doctor, and he didn't have a clue how to do that.

"It's late at night, Mrs. Evans," Alex said quickly, gesturing to the dark sky beyond the windows. "I don't think any doctor's offices are open."

Mrs. Evans, who had been in the middle of trying to pull the covers away from her daughter, paused and glanced at Alex. "A hospital, then…?" she suggested, more to herself than to the teenage boy.

Alex's eyes widened at that, and he shook his head. "I don't think it is that serious, Mrs. Evans, and you know Isabel hates hospitals."

"Not that serious?" Mrs. Evans demanded, eyes flashing dangerously. "My daughter is burning up, she's _unconscious_…"

"She's just asleep," Alex countered, "and the fever will go away eventually."

Mrs. Evans glowered at Alex, and drew herself up to her full height. "My daughter is very sick, Alex Whitman, and I have no intention of leaving her here while I can help her!" Quivering with righteous indignation that Alex would even suggest such a thing, she turned away and focused her attention on Isabel.

"Mrs. Evans…" There wasn't really anything Alex could say, and he knew it. Isabel was sick, and Mrs. Evans had every reason to want to take her daughter to a doctor. But a doctor wouldn't help right now, and Alex had to make sure that Mrs. Evans understood that.

He didn't know what he was going to tell her, but a treacherous thought slipped into his mind…

Whatever he told her now, she could forget later. Tess could see to that.

He pushed the thought away before he could truly consider the idea, but as he watched Mrs. Evans struggle to wake her sleeping daughter, he realized that he didn't have any choice. Throwing caution to the wind, he did the only thing he could.

"You can't take her to the hospital, Mrs. Evans. She'll be in serious trouble if you do."

Mrs. Evans stopped, frozen in place by the words, then turned to look at Alex again. Her first thought was that her daughter was somehow involved in something illegal. Was this a drug overdose? Was that the problem? Would she be arrested and sent to jail for the rest of her life? Even as those thoughts came to mind, other, more far-fetched scenarios played through her fearful brain. Had Isabel been exposed to some biotoxin? Was she somehow involved in the production of weapons of biological warfare? Had an experiment gone wrong?

The ideas were ridiculous, as she well knew. Products of an overactive imagination. But her daughter was in serious trouble, and this boy was telling her that she couldn't take Isabel to a doctor? What was she supposed to think.

"I can't tell you anything," Alex continued before Mrs. Evans had a chance to ask any questions. "Just… please, you have to trust me."

"Trust you?" Mrs. Evans practically screeched. "My daughter is…" she gestured helplessly to Isabel's still form. "And you want me to trust you when you tell me I _can't_ help her?"

"I'm trying to protect Isabel," Alex replied, defending himself in a soft tone of voice. "Please, if you take her… bad things will happen to her. To all of you, and I… I can't let that happen."

Alex suddenly had a vivid recollection of when he had first discovered the truth about the aliens. He'd been intent on going to Sheriff Valenti, revealing the truth, but he'd run into Tess at the Sheriff's office. When he said he was going to turn on them, what had her reply been?

That if he told the Sheriff, the FBI would come take Max and Liz away. And if anything happened to her family, she'd make him regret it.

And…

She'd played with his emotions.

She'd filled his mind with some much fear, played with his emotions enough, that he'd have done anything in the world to keep their secret safe, if only to protect Liz. It had taken him a long time to forgive her for planting fear in his mind like that, and even now he knew he still harbored a little resentment.

It was ironic, he decided, that as he stared at Mrs. Evans, he suddenly wished he had Tess' gifts.

He considered her abilities a violation of privacy and human dignity, but he abruptly understood why she was so willing to use them. Sometimes it was the only way to survive, and survival was the only thing that mattered.

What type of person was this association with the aliens turning him into?

Mrs. Evans, for her part, turned from Alex back to Isabel. She'd stopped thinking hysterically about biotoxins and drug overdoses, and instead was focusing on memories, bits and pieces of a puzzle that slowly fell into place.

All the times Max and Isabel dodged her questions, stopped talking when she entered the room, avoided her eye contact when she'd comment on something strange that had happened…

The shooting, and the fact that the Sheriff had been so interested in Max…

How Michael had been in the right place at the right time to pull Amy out of a burning car, had managed to push Hank through a solid plaster wall…

The way her children would disappear for a few hours, and yet always have a little too good of an excuse for where they were when they showed up again…

The fact that they remembered nothing about the first six years of their lives…

She'd always known that there was something different, something special, about her children. And she'd often suspected that there was something special about Michael as well. She didn't know what it was, and wasn't entirely sure she even wanted to know. Had something happened in those first six years, something they _did_ remember, but wouldn't talk about, something that shaped who they were and how they acted?

Max, Isabel, and Michael had always been a solitary group, hanging out by themselves, not bothering to include others. Until recently, when Liz, Maria, and Alex had entered the picture. Mrs. Evans didn't know them incredibly well, but she knew that they were good kids, and their parents were good people. And she liked them well enough.

She was jealous that her children had trusted others with the secret that they wouldn't tell her. But Alex said he was trying to help Isabel, Alex said that Isabel couldn't be taken to a doctor… and if Isabel trusted Alex, then she would also.

Whatever this secret was, it didn't change the fact that Isabel and Max were her children, and she loved them unconditionally.

"What should I do?" she asked at last, turning to Alex for advice.

Alex let out a breath of relief. "Do you know how to bring down a fever?" he asked.

Mrs. Evans nodded slowly. "I'll be right back," she said, and left the room, shutting the door softly behind her. Sooner or later, she'd demand answers from her children. But right now, she just wanted to keep Isabel safe.

* * *

"_Princess?" Michael knocked on the door to her bedroom. "Do you have a moment?" he asked. Michael was faithful in his attentions to his young bride-to-be. He spent every moment that he could with her, and only left her side if she requested to be alone, or if Max needed him. _

_Isabel opened the door and allowed her betrothed to enter. _

_Michael paused as he noticed that Tess was sitting in one of the chairs. "I beg your pardon. I did not realize I was intruding on your visit. Shall I come back later?" he asked politely, turning to Isabel questioningly._

"_No, stay," Tess said swiftly, answering the question for her friend. "Actually, I have to leave. I must meet with your brother for lunch today and discuss more arrangements for your wedding. He is beside himself with plans, and I fear the stress of it all will kill him if this wedding does not happen soon."_

"_It is fast approaching," Isabel replied with a smile. Her brother was doting on this occasion, as he claimed he wanted the best for his sister._

"_Yes," Tess agreed. "It is."_

_Tess left the room, and Michael turned to Isabel. "I am afraid that I will not be able to be here for a while. I am being sent back into the field again, we have had some problems with rebels in the Eastern region."_

"_So soon before the wedding?" Isabel asked, disappointed._

_Michael nodded solemnly. "Unfortunately, Princess, we are at war, and the war will wait for nothing, not even a wedding."_

* * *

"Okay, let me just get this straight," Liz said, her gaze traveling to each member of the group. She turned first to Michael. "You ran into Ms. Topolski. Then Max and Maria found you." She shifted to look at Maria. "You got kidnapped by Ms. Topolski and then shot at by this Agent Pierce. Then you and Michael ended up in a cave with a Native American who claims to have met aliens before." She turned her attention to Max. "You met our mysterious shape-shifter, who calls himself Nasedo, and says that he is on our side, but who we don't quite completely trust." Then she turned to Tess. "And Alex called you to tell you that Isabel was sick, so you connected with Isabel and discovered that she's trapped in a… a dream?" 

Max, Michael, and Maria had returned to the campsite only a few moments ago, and had signaled for Liz and Tess to join them in the woods, away from prying eyes. There, Max and Michael had both relayed what they had seen and heard, Maria had added a few comments about her conversation with Ms. Topolski, and Tess had explained what she knew about Isabel.

Tess tilted her head to the side and regarded Liz contemplatively. "Yes, I think that pretty much sums it up," she replied dryly.

"How bad is Isabel?" Max asked, glancing at Tess.

Tess shook her head, obviously worried. "Not good, Max. I think… I think we need to get back to her as soon as possible."

"But what about everything that happened to us?" Maria questioned. "Shouldn't we at least talk about it?" They hadn't really discussed any of the details, just outlined the major events.

"After we take care of Isabel," Michael said, wrapping his arm around Maria's shoulders. Maria nodded, realizing the sense in that plan, and Michael turned to Max. "But how are we going to do that?"

"We need to go home," Max said simply.

"How?" Michael countered. "We can't just tell you father that Isabel is trapped in a dream and we have to go rescue her," he pointed out.

"Which brings us to the question of how we're going to rescue her anyway," Tess added. "None of us can reach her if she's in a dream, that's her gift, not ours."

"Alex is with her, right?" Max asked, inclining his head to Tess in indication that he agreed with her assessment. Still, they'd deal with the problem of how to help Isabel once they got to her, right now they had to figure out how to get there.

"I think so," Tess said. "He's the one that called me." She ran a hand through her hair and muttered, "I really wish we had cell phone reception here."

"If Alex is with her, then hopefully he can keep her safe until we get there," Max concluded. He glanced at the group. "So… any ideas?"

Liz, who hadn't spoken in a while, asked abruptly, "Isabel was sick this morning, right?"

"Yes, but we don't know if she was faking it or not," Max replied.

Liz nodded and said, "But your father would assume that she was telling the truth, right? That she was really sick?" All eyes turned to Liz, waiting for her to explain the relevance of her line of questioning. "Well," she continued, "siblings often get each other sick." She looked at Max. "If you got sick now, your father would take you home, right? You and Michael."

"Yes, but that leaves Tess here, and what if we need her?" Michael asked, poking a hole in Liz's plan.

"All three of us aren't going to be able to leave without arousing suspicion," Tess answered. She glanced at Liz. "I think Liz's idea is our best bet. I can mind-warp Mr. Evans into thinking you're running a fever, and then you and Michael can try to help him Isabel."

Liz stared at Tess, rather surprised that the petite blonde had agreed with her.

"Alright," Max said at last, finally giving into Tess and Liz's reasoning. "Let's do this."

* * *

Next Chapter: The Enemy of My Enemy 

Due: Sun 4/1


	69. The Enemy of My Enemy

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: _Italics_ are dreams. The dreams in this chapter and the last one are not really in any chronological order, so don't be surprised about that.

* * *

Chapter Sixty-Eight: The Enemy of My Enemy

"_Do you love her?" Isabel asked as she leaned back against the plush arm chair. She wrapped her arms around herself, eyeing her brother curiously._

"_She is my best friend," Max replied. He glanced at the library window through which they could both see the garden. The trees were in full bloom, soft white flowers clustered on the branches._

"_Yes, but do you love her?" Isabel pressed._

_Max laughed at his sister's persistence. "Yes," he said at last, giving a nod. "I do. I am just… not sure that we are right for each other." He sighed and looked seriously at his sister. "We grew up together. I know everything about her. And I do love her. But…"_

"_But what?" Isabel asked, tilting her head to the side._

_Max was about to answer when the door swung open and Tess stepped into the library. She froze, surprised to see the two of them there, then said quickly, "I beg your pardon. I didn't realize this room was occupied." _

"_That is aright," Isabel replied easily, offering the other girl a smile. "We were just talking."_

"_What were you speaking about?" Tess asked, taking a few more steps into the room._

"_Actually," Isabel answered, giving her brother a mischievous look, "we were talking about you."_

* * *

Only about an hour later, Max and Michael sat on either side of Isabel's pale form, staring down at her closed eyes. Alex was pacing back and forth across the floor near the window, watching them in worry and relief. Mr. Evans was downstairs talking to his wife, and Alex had informed them that Mrs. Evans knew something was going on with her children. Max was concerned about what she might tell his father, but right now he had to focus on Isabel. 

The plan had worked perfectly. Tess had mind-warped Mr. Evans into thinking that Max was running a fever, and the older man had instantly decided to drive his son home. Michael had insisted on coming also, explaining that he didn't really want to be left alone in the woods with a whole bunch of people he didn't like. Liz and Maria had wished the two aliens luck, and Tess had sent them a silent look clearly conveying that they'd better fix Isabel and stay out of trouble while doing it.

Once back at the house, Michael had walked Max upstairs. They'd slipped into Isabel's room, where Alex had almost fainted with relief when he saw them. He quickly explained everything that had happened, from Isabel's white eyes to Mrs. Evans discovery.

Max ran a hand over Isabel's ashen face. She was hot and sweaty, and her entire body kept tossing back and forth, caught up in some nightmare. He'd tried to heal her already, but it didn't work. He'd tried to wake her up, but that had failed also.

"Do you think your mother is going to talk to anyone about what she saw?" Michael asked softly.

Max shrugged. "She'll tell my Dad, but I don't know about anyone else." He gave Michael a pensive look and sighed. He knew that both he and his best friend were thinking the same thing; if they could keep the knowledge contained to just his parents, then Tess could take care of the risk when she got back from the camping trip. But he was loathe to do that, to ask Tess to use her gifts against his own parents. On the other hand, what choice did he really have?

Seeing the indecision on Max's face, Michael said, "Tess isn't back yet, so there's no point worrying about your parents. Focus on Isabel for right now."

Max nodded, expelling a breath, and turned to Alex. "I need you to tell me everything that happened," he instructed, and Alex began the explanations.

* * *

Mrs. Evans poured a cup of tea and glanced at her husband out of the corner of her eye. He was standing next to the sink, staring through the kitchen window at the night sky. She sighed and took a sip of tea. The hot liquid slid down her throat. 

"How's Isabel?" Mr. Evans asked at last, glancing over at his wife.

Mrs. Evans opened her mouth to say something, that shook her head and looked back down at her mug. The dark tea swirled around inside the cup. "She's still sick," she answered at last. "It seems to be getting worse. I hope Max doesn't get as bad symptoms."

Mr. Evans frowned. "Do you think we should take her to a doctor?"

Mrs. Evans opened her mouth to reply, then closed it. Apprehension shone in her eyes, and Mr. Evans could tell that something was wrong. He took a concerned step towards her, but she turned away quickly.

"Let's wait and see if her fever breaks tomorrow," Mrs. Evans replied. She walked over to the table and sat down. Resting her head on the palm of her hand and propping her elbows on the table, she asked, "How bad was Max?"

"Running a fever, complaining of a really bad headache and a sore throat. He didn't look so good… pale and sweaty," Mr. Evans replied. He glanced over his shoulder at the stairs. "Is Michael still here?"

"I think so," Mrs. Evans replied.

"We should send him home soon. Max needs a good night's sleep," Mr. Evans commented. He glanced at the clock. It was late, almost midnight. He stood up and headed towards the door, but Mrs. Evans voice called him back.

"Philip?"

"Mm?" Her turned and looked at her, and her eyes were dark with worry, fear, and some other emotion he couldn't quite place.

"Do you remember… do you remember if Max and Isabel have ever been sick before?"

Mr. Evans considered this, tilting his head to one side. He racked his memory, but realized that he had no recollection of ever having to take Max and Isabel to a doctor. Sure, they both had doctors, and they'd gone for the vaccinations required to attend public school, and when they were younger and still growing, their doctor had weighed them and measured their height, and tested their sight and hearing. But had they ever been sick?

"I guess not," he replied.

Mrs. Evans nodded pensively and looked back down at her tea. She raised the cup to her lips and swallowed the rest of the liquid in one gulp. Standing up, she said, "I'll go tell Michael he needs to leave." She walked past her husband and out of the kitchen,

Mr. Evans watched her go in confusion and worry.

* * *

"Are you sure you're okay?" Liz asked Maria for what must have been the tenth time as she slipped into her sleeping bag. A flashlight leaned against the tent fabric near Maria's head, sending a flickering glow through the air between the two girls. The wind rattled against the outside of the tent. 

Maria rolled over and looked at her best friend, an eyebrow raised. She sat up in her sleeping bag, letting the warm fabric fall away from her, and shivering slightly in the cool night air. "Lizzie? Is everything okay?" the blonde asked.

Liz forced a smile. "You got attacked by the FBI. Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?"

Maria frowned. "Well, something is obviously bothering you. Come on, I'm your best friend, I can tell. So… spill it."

"Everything's happening all at once," Liz said finally, after taking a moment to organize her thoughts. "It's just… this rush. Everything's always moving, and we barely have time to stop and think before the next problem comes. And I'm… worried."

"About what?" Maria pressed, giving Liz her full attention now.

"I don't know," Liz admitted. She fell back against her pillow, staring up at the sloping canvas roof of the tent. She grappled for a moment, trying to come up with the right words to express her convoluted feelings. How was she supposed to explain that she was afraid of everything and nothing? Of the dangers of being in this group and the possibilities of being forced out of it. The thoughts didn't even make sense in her own mind, they would make even less sense if she said them out loud.

She let out a slow breath.

Maria studied Liz's expression for a moment, trying to read each lined on her friend's face. "Would you have preferred to be the one with Max tonight? Looking for Michael instead of me?" she asked at last.

Liz turned her head slightly to look at Maria. "No," she replied. "It made sense the way we split up. It was the only way to keep our parents from getting suspicious."

"Yes, I know, it was _logical_," Maria countered, "but logic aside, would you have preferred to be the one out there tonight?"

"No," Liz repeated. After a moment's pause, she replied, "I don't know." She looked back up at the tent. "Max and I… were trying. And I know we can make it work. But sometimes… sometimes I can't help but think it would be so much easier if Max was just… normal." She let out a dark chuckle. "You're not supposed to wish that your boyfriend could change his species."

"It's a valid wish," Maria objected. "We would have all this danger and drama if…"

"No," Liz interrupted her. "We wouldn't. But then Max wouldn't be Max." She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking, then added, "I hope Isabel is okay."

"Me, too," Maria agreed. She didn't comment on the change in subject. She knew there was more Liz had to say, but she also knew that Liz wasn't going to say it until she was ready. A silence fell over the two of them, then Maria turned off the flashlight and the tent plunged into darkness.

"Everything happens for a reason, Lizzie," Maria said softly, her voice echoing slightly in the dark. "Things are out of control, but maybe there's a reason for that."

"I know," Liz replied finally. "Like Sean said, you can't go back, so you have to focus on going forward." It was enough, though, that slight reassurances. She couldn't explain her fears and worries, but they were still there, still plaguing her.

"Who knows," Maria added, "with any luck, maybe things will get back to semi-normal after this."

Liz laughed slightly, wondering what semi-normal actually was. Maybe things would calm down a bit, maybe her fears were just paranoia. Still, they lingered as exhaustion flooded through her, and her last thought before she drifted to sleep was that they were all going to need a lot of luck to make it through the next few weeks.

She'd awake the next morning with no memory of that fleeting thought, never realizing just how accurate she'd been.

* * *

Alex and Michael both left at Mrs. Evans urging. She hadn't been surprised to find all of them in Isabel's room, and she wanted more than anything to demand answers. Max hadn't looked sick, only worried and scared. She wanted to know what was going on, but she hadn't been able to come up with anything to say. She had looked at Max, and he had looked back at her, and she could barely convince herself that this closed-off child with too many secrets and too serious eyes was the child she'd adopted ten years ago. 

She leaned against the door to her room and stared unseeingly at the wall across from her. The sound of rushing water signaled that her husband had just stepped into the shower. Above her, she heard the sound of footsteps falling lightly against the floor, and knew that Max was leaving his room and creeping back to Isabel.

She needed to talk to her husband.

She walked over to the bed and sat down. Mr. Evans would be done with his shower in ten or fifteen minutes, and she could tell him everything that had happened then. In the meantime…

In the meantime, she was left wondering what was going on with her children, and why they didn't trust her enough to tell her the truth.

* * *

Alex left, mostly because Michael had made it clear he would force Alex to leave if the human resisted. But Michael himself hadn't left. He simply waited until he was sure that Mr. and Mrs. Evans were in their own room, then slipped back through the window into Isabel's room like he'd done millions of times before. 

Max was standing next to Isabel's bed, looking distressed. He barely glanced up at Michael. "I tired healing her again," he whispered. "I tried over and over but she's not…" He gestured helplessly, as though to convey his own inability to help his sister. The desperation in his voice and eyes was evident, and Michael felt his stomach twist in painfully sharp fear.

"There's a way to save her, Max, I know there is. We just… we just have to find it." Michael's words were hardly reassuring, but Max offered him a fleeting smile of thanks.

"I just keep thinking about this morning," Max admitted. He glanced at the clock on the wall and frowned, then corrected himself, "Well, I guess it was yesterday morning." He turned his attention back to Isabel. "I was upset that she was getting out of the camping trip. I got mad at her."

"It's not your fault," Michael replied softly. "We didn't know she was really sick." He gave Isabel a quick look, noting the way her body twisted under the sheets, observing the beads of swept that gathered on her flushed face. "She probably didn't even realize she was that sick."

"Yeah…" Max sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. "It's just weird timing, you know?" he admitted. "Everything sort of happened at once. I can't stop thinking about it, about everything we were told."

"Me, neither," Michael agreed. He'd already reached several conclusions, ones that he wanted to share with the other aliens. But with Isabel sick, it didn't really seem like the right time to bring up his ideas. Still… He wondered if the others had already come to the same conclusions he did.

"The Native American you spoke to," Max said abruptly, "he mentioned the Protector." He turned and looked at Michael, and there was a strange look in his eyes, one that Michael couldn't quite decipher.

Michael nodded warily. "He didn't trust the Protector," he added.

Max licked his dry lips. "He was referring to the same shape-shifter that keeps contacting us," he said firmly. It wasn't a question. "He's the Protector."

Michael nodded. He'd suspected that as well.

"That shape-shifter, he's enemies with the people who killed Atherton. And so are we," Max continued. "So at least we are on the same side of _something_."

"He's not trustworthy," Michael objected instantly. "We don't know anything about him."

"We know that he isn't trustworthy," Max argued. "The one thing we can count on is that he has his own agenda. But… I don't think he's our enemy either. He's just not our friend."

"You're not making any sense," Michael snapped angrily, glancing between Max and Isabel. He had no idea what Max was talking about, or how he had come to these conclusions, and Isabel was still very sick, maybe dying. They needed to focus on the problem at hand.

"Stay here," Max ordered. He stood up and stepped past Michael towards the window. Michael stared at him incredulously, but he didn't offer any explanation for his actions, or even an answer to Michael's early comment.

Michael grabbed his arm. "What are you doing?" he demanded as Max tried to open the window.

"I don't know," Max replied. "But I know it's going to work." He finally shoved the window open and turned to look back at his best friend. His dark eyes were filled with a strange light, a strong determination, as he said, "Trust me."

Michael stared at Max, unsure. Then, finally, he nodded and let go of Max's arm.

And Max was gone, slipping through the window and disappearing into the night.

Michael turned and walked over to the bed. He sat down next to Isabel and took her hand in his. He knew she wouldn't respond to his presence, probably wasn't even aware of the fact that he was there. Still, he needed tangible reassurance that Isabel was still alive, needed to feel the steady pulse beating through her wrist.

"You need to get better," he said at last, the words catching in his throat. "You need to… we have so much we need to tell you." He dropped her hand and ran a hand through his own hair. "Tonight, in the woods, we ran into Ms. Topolski. She told us a lot. The FBI, they're after us. Lead by a man named Donald Pierce. In 1947, they caught an alien. A shape-shifter. They locked him in a white room, like the one in my vision. They tested him, studied him, but he escaped. He killed one of the men, left a silver handprint. That was only a little while ago, a month or two months ago, maybe."

She didn't respond to any of his words. He sighed and shook his head, but continued talking anyway.

"Don't you see? He's probably the man who kept contacting us, the one who visited your dreams. He met Max in the woods tonight. He told Max that there were others out there, enemies of ours. People who wanted to kill us, but were afraid of us also." Michael glanced at the window as the wind suddenly picked up and rattled the pane. "Maria and I met a man. A Native American. He knew about other aliens, ones who killed Atherton. They came to Roswell, like they were drawn here. Around the same time that we came out of the pods. I think… I think they were drawn to us, Isabel. They're looking for us, they're the ones that the Protector… Nasedo… told Max about. Our enemies."

Everything was falling into place, bits and pieces of the puzzle coming together like jigsaw pieces.

"But then, about a year later, they left. Riverdog said that they told him they had found something else." Michael closed his eyes and let out a breath. "A year later, Isabel. Do you know what that means? Do you know what they found?" He looked down at her. He thought he knew what it meant, he thought he knew why they had left. He was almost hesitant to say it out loud, as though it would make it more real. But what was done was done, and he knew that these other aliens, they were the ones that had…

"A year later," Michael repeated. "They found something." He swallowed. "They found Tess."

These aliens, they'd been drawn to Atherton. They'd discovered that he had proof of aliens, and they'd killed him. Then they'd sensed something else, and been drawn to Roswell just as the four pod squad members emerged from their pods. They hadn't attacked, maybe because they were afraid. But then, only a little while later, they'd located the fourth alien, the one who was separate from everyone else. Tess. She was an easier target on her own, and they'd gone after her.

Or, rather, they'd gone after Andrew and Jessica.

Ms. Topolski had talked about knowing that other aliens existed as well. These aliens, the ones who had killed Tess' parents. The aliens who wanted to kill them as well. The ones who Riverdog had said were afraid of Nasedo. Their enemies.

It all made sense.

And yet…

Questions kept plaguing Michael. If Donald Pierce had been responsible for the original capture of Nasedo in 1947, how was he still alive now? He'd be close to eighty, and too old to lead part of the FBI.

And how exactly had the enemy aliens located Tess? How had they known where she was?

And, most troubling of all, why hadn't these aliens attacked yet? It'd been ten years since they emerged from their pods. Why hadn't the aliens killed Tess after they'd gotten rid of Andrew and Jessica? And why hadn't they then finished of Max and Isabel and himself?

Michael sighed and looked back at Isabel. "Please wake up," he repeated, his words lingering in the silence of the room.

* * *

_Isabel flattened herself against the wall and listened to the angry voices that drifted towards her from the half-open door down the hallway._

"_You cannot do this!" That was her brother's voice, and she rarely heard him raise it in such anger._

"_Don't tell me what I can do," a voice replied, hissing with barely-controlled fury. That was her soon-to-be sister-in-law._

"_Did you even think about the consequences of your actions?"_

_Isabel frowned, trying to remember anything that her soon-to-be sister-in-law may have done that would have incurred her brother's wrath. Yet as much as she tried, she was unable to explain the argument. No answers came to mind._

"_Of course I did, _my King_." The words dripped with derision and scorn. "Just as much as you ever do." Then the sound of footsteps echoed softly, and Isabel watched as a figure emerged from the room._

_Tess caught sight of Isabel and glared at her, knowing that the other woman had been eavesdropping on the conversation. Isabel stared back, not saying anything. Tess finally gave a angry sigh and turned around, stalking away. Isabel watched her best friend leave in silence._

_Max appeared in the hallway a moment later. He and Isabel exchanged a brief look, that Max ran a hand through his hair in frustration and turned to gaze at Tess' retreating figure._

"_Love is not supposed to be easy," Isabel offered, wishing she had some other words of wisdom to impart._

_Max stared at her for a moment, then replied, "I suppose you have it easier. You're marriage is arranged, love does not factor into it." And he was gone, wandering away through the corridor._

* * *

Max glanced around the park. The night sky was filled with clouds now, obscuring the moon and stars from view. It was dark, and he had to squint to make out the shapes of trees and benches. Part of him had no idea what he was doing here. Hadn't he always said that they needed to be careful, to trust no one? Hadn't he always been the one who opted for acting normal over pursuing answers? 

The other part of him knew exactly why he was here. This was Isabel, and that made all the difference in the world. He loved Michael and Tess… and Liz… but Isabel was… _Isabel_.

And she was in danger.

He sat on one of the benches and stared up at the sky, lost in thought. For a moment, he thought he saw a set of stars blinking through the misty clouds, bright lights that formed a v. But the illusion faded a moment later, and the clouds rolled slowly into place again, until he was staring at nothing but gray.

He forced himself to clear his mind and listen to the sounds of the night. It was almost silent, just the gentle rustling of the wind through the leaves and across the grass. Somewhere in the distance, a car drove by, it's headlights two small pinpricks that barely illuminated anything around them.

And then he heard the set of footsteps behind him, the crackle of grass and branches bending underneath someone's step.

Max stood up and turned around, staring at the visitor warily. "You came."

Nasedo smiled, a flicker of a grin passing through his eyes. Then his expression turned unreadable once more. "I told you if you needed me, I would find you."

"How did you know we needed you?" Max demanded. He was relieved that this strange man had shown up, but it didn't stop the tiniest bit of doubt and suspicion from winding it's way through his thoughts.

Nasedo considered this, then replied, "That's my job." He glanced around the park. "Why do you need me?"

"It's Isabel," Max replied. "She's sick." He narrowed his eyes. "Couldn't you have sensed that on your own? She needs you, so you should be able to tell what's wrong."

Nasedo shook his head. "It doesn't work like that. I'm not all powerful." He said this in a way that clearly conveyed how frustrated he was by that fact. Before Max had a chance to ask anymore questions, he pressed, "What is wrong with your sister?"

Max sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "She's running a fever, and her eyes flashed white a couple times. She's unconscious, and she's not waking up. I can't heal her. Tess said… Tess said it feels like Isabel is trapped in a dream." He frowned at Nasedo. "Is that possible?"

"Does she have the power to enter other's dreams?" Nasedo asked.

Max raised an eyebrow. "You don't know her gifts?" he demanded, surprised. The shape-shifter knew so much about them, it was almost a relief to discover that he didn't know everything.

Nasedo pursed his lips. "Your abilities are not necessarily linked to your identity," he replied. The answer made little sense to Max, but once again, Nasedo continued before the teenage alien could ask more questions. "Was she entering other's dreams prior to her sickness?"

Max closed his eyes, trying to remember. That morning, when Isabel had said she was sick, Max had no idea what she was doing. But that evening, before Alex got there… there had been a yearbook on the floor of Isabel's room. She rarely took out her yearbook unless she was dream-walking, so was it possible that…?

"She might have been," Max said at last. "Why?"

"She's been having dreams, hasn't she?" Nasedo murmured, more to himself than to Max. "Dreams of what once was." He turned and looked at the sky, as though there was something there, some sign that he was searching for.

Max, impatient and worried, snapped, "Do you know what is wrong with her or not?" He was starting to wonder if he'd made the wrong choice coming here, trusting that this man would help him. He didn't trust the shape-shifter, but he did believe that the shape-shifter would not want Isabel to come to any harm. He wasn't sure why he thought that, but his gut was telling him that this man would not out-rightly wish them physical harm.

Nasedo frowned at him. "I can help her," he offered. "You must return to your home." He stepped away from Max, and before the teenage alien could object, he was already walking away.

Max watched the shape-shifter leave, watched him disappear into the night, fading away. He expelled a breath, praying that this man was telling the truth, that he would be able to help. Then he too left the park, glancing at the sky one last time.

For a moment, he was sure the same v-shaped constellation shown down on him, but that image too faded, and he was left staring at the clouds.

* * *

Pierce closed the door to his office and sat down at his desk. He placed his gun on the smooth mahogany in front of him, and leaned back in his chair, staring at the far window. It was a make-shift office, set up in a small motel room near the outskirts of Roswell. He had several of these offices scattered about the state so that he would always have a place to retire to while chasing the aliens. 

It was silent. In the darkness of the room, he could almost feel the lingering presence of past memories haunting him.

He reached out and opened one of the drawers, then sifted through the contents for a moment, before pulling out a worn photograph. It showed a man and a boy, standing in front of a gas station, filling the tank of an old Chevy. It was the first car he'd ever driven, the one his father had taught him how to maneuver through the run-down streets of his hometown.

His mother had taken that photograph to commemorate the first time he had put gas in the car. He'd been sixteen, and his father had proudly taught him all the tricks of driving.

The picture was yellowed with age, and the corners were bent slightly. Pierce stared at it, a contemplative look on his face. Then he replaced the picture in the drawer and, as an added precaution, locked the desk as well.

Standing up, he walked over to the window and stared down at the street below. He'd never thought Agent Topolski would turn on the FBI like that, but she had, and it had almost ruined everything. Who knew how much information she'd imparted to the suspects before he'd caught up with her? He had to assume the worst, that she'd blown his cover and told them his plan. He'd have to change the time-table, move up his schedule. He couldn't take any chances, not now that they were so close.

He pressed his palm against the windowpane. These strangers, these extraterrestrials, they were all alike. Cold-blooded killers. Threats. Enemies. And he was going to make sure they never had a chance to hurt anyone ever again, even if he had to kill every last one of them himself.

* * *

_Isabel ran her hand through the tiny pool of cold water and watched as the droplets formed on her smooth skin and created rivulets that ran through her fingers and fell into the grass of the garden. She was sitting on a bench underneath the shade of a beautiful tree, and Michael was standing next to her, watching her carefully._

_Isabel glanced up at Michael, and he smiled at her. Then his smile turned into a frown as a gust of cold wind whipped around him, and he looked up at the sky. _

"_Do you think it's going to rain?" he asked._

_Isabel didn't answer. Instead, she turned and stared across the garden at the distant gate, where Max and Tess were talking. She could tell they were having a serious discussion about something, and Tess seemed on the verge of tears. Max seemed upset as well, although he was holding himself together fairly well._

_Tess turned abruptly and walked away._

_Isabel shook her head and asked with a smile, "Who's going to look after him when we're gone?" She was gesturing towards Max, who as staring after Tess with a look of longing on his face._

_Michael's expression turned grim. Isabel sighed, running a hand through her hair. She knew he was thinking of the war that was pulling them all apart. It wouldn't be long now before he was forced to go into battle, and Isabel couldn't quite assuage the fear that this might be the last time she saw him alive._

_She tried to push the thoughts away, but they refused to budge._

_Michael slanted a look at Tess, catching a glimpse of her just before she disappeared behind the gates of the garden._

"_Aren't these things supposed to take care of themselves?" he asked. Relationships were never his forte. That type of love was not something he'd ever experienced, not even with his betrothed._

_Isabel wanted to believe that her brother and sister-in-law would always work through their problems. They had in the past, but the past was not always a good indication of the future. Still, maybe there was hope… After all, she was certain that Max loved Tess and that Tess loved Max. Perhaps that was all it took. Perhaps whatever Being watched over them would make sure Tess and Max found their way._

_For all their fights, she envied what Max and Tess had. She knew she'd never feel it for her betrothed, though he may be a wonderful man and companion. But they were not in love._

_She pushed the thoughts away._

"_Some sort of higher purpose, a supreme being? Something guiding us, looking after us?" she teased._

_Michael gave Isabel a sharp look, then frowned out at the distance. His face was myriad of emotions, pain and sorrow and horror. "No, nobody watches now," he murmured, and Isabel knew he was thinking of the war, and all it had cost them. He shook his head, then asked in a different tone, "Do you think it's going to rain?"_

"_Rain?" Isabel repeated, and she looked up at the sky. A few clouds lingered. Perhaps it would._

_Max left the garden, and Isabel glanced at him quickly before he was gone._

"_It always rains." Michael turned away from Isabel, his eyes moving back to the great house in which they lived. He studied the stones, the shining lights glowing from within the rooms, the polished wooden doors. They were safe here, but the rest of the planet was not, not while this war still raged._

_So many people died. Died in flashes of fire, flood of water, rushes of wind… died in war._

"_Fire, water, wind…" He didn't even realize he'd said the words aloud until Isabel turned to look at him in confusion. "Rain," he added. Perhaps the rain would flood the planet and kill them all._

_He did not like war. _

_Which, he supposed, was odd for a General._

"_Of course," Isabel agreed, not really sure what she was agreeing to. She stood up. "So much for all of us to do," she offered, turning towards the house. There was a lot for them to do, and it was time they returned to their work._

_Michael caught her arm as she passed, and she turned to look at him. The sleeve of her dress slipped away from her pale skin, revealing a thin white scar, reminders of a fight they'd once had, of a crime she'd once committed against him._

_They'd come back from it, although it was a difficult road to forgiveness and understanding._

_He stared at the scar._

"_Scar tissue," she explained, pulling her arm away. It wasn't anything to worry about anymore, just a reminder of something they'd both moved on from._

_Right?_

_She looked up at him, pleading in her eyes, and he looked back at her. Had they both moved on?_

"_It fades," he said at last, his eyes traveling back to the snake-white line. He sighed and looked away. "Everything fades."_

_She wasn't sure if he meant the scar or their relationship, but she didn't say anything else. They walked back through the garden to the house in silence._

_At the door to the great house, Isabel turned, and found herself staring into brilliant yellow eyes._

_The shape-shifter._

_The dream turned on it's side, and she felt as though she was falling through space. She tried to grab onto something, but all she could see was a rush of color, and the memories faded in and out of existence, flashes of Tess, Max, and Michael, all the same, and yet somehow different._

"_What?" she gasped out. They were standing in the desert now, but she could still smell the remnants of the garden she had been in only moments before. The perfume from the flowers lingered in the air, and she caught sight of the bright green grass and red flowers in her peripheral vision. It disappeared when she tried to look at it. _

"_Stop fighting me," the shape-shifter commanded. "You fool." He sounded angry._

"_I don't understand," Isabel gasped, willing herself to wake up. _

_She couldn't._

"_I'm trying to save you, and you keep trying to go back to that dream," the shape-shifter snapped. "Focus. Stay here."_

"_What are you talking about?" Isabel spat, confused and wary._

_The shape-shifter sighed. "Your dreams are supposed to remind you of the past. You were supposed to have all these memories anyway, but something went wrong when the ship crashed. Now… things are coming into alignment… the stars, the paths are intertwining. It is coming, and these dreams are meant to prepare you."_

"_How? What do you mean?" Isabel pressed._

_The shape-shifter shook his head. "You remember old conversations that you have had, and you relive them in familiar places. The desert." He gestured to the scenery around him. "But you weren't content with those glimpses of the past, you wanted more. Didn't you?"_

_Isabel narrowed her eyes, trying to understand his accusation, trying to remember what had happened before she'd been pulled into these dreams, trapped in her own mind._

"_I… last night, before the camping trip, I was… bored…" Isabel murmured, thinking. "And I… I took out my yearbook, I was dream-walking others and then… then I thought…"_

"_You wondered what would happen if you dream-walked yourself," the shape-shifter supplied when Isabel didn't finish the sentence._

_Isabel nodded. "I tried it, just once. It was… interesting." She closed her eyes, remembering. "And then I was sick when I woke up in the morning. Just a fever. I didn't think anything of it." She should have wondered at that, she realized now. She should have been suspicious of the fact that she'd been sick. They'd never been sick before, not a day in their lives._

"_What did you do?" the shape-shifter pressed._

"_Max left with Dad and Michael, and I… I just kept dream-walking myself. Then I got really sick, and I stopped and… Alex came over… but the dreams, they… they pulled me back. I couldn't wake up."_

"_You lost control of your powers," the shape-shifter explained._

"_Gifts," Isabel corrected automatically._

_The shape-shifter raised an eyebrow, but accepted the correction. "You cannot dream-walk yourself, it is too dangerous. You become entangled in your own dreams, and no one has the gift to pull you out of them. No one else can dream-walk, am I right?"_

_Isabel nodded._

_The shape-shifter extended his hands towards her. "I can dream-walk. I can save you from this trap. Take my hand." Isabel stared at him, unsure and afraid. He looked back at her, and whispered, "Trust me."_

_And slowly, ever so slowly, she reached out and took his hands._

* * *

Max watched as Isabel began to cough, her body twisting back and forth, practically writhing. She looked as though she was in pain, and he rushed towards her, Michael following quickly. But before he could even reach out his hand to touch her face, her eyes snapped open. 

"Max…? Michael…?" she gasped feebly.

"Isabel," Max whispered, reaching down and pulling her into a fierce hug. "Oh, thank God." He pulled back and looked at her urgently. "What happened?"

"I…" Isabel closed her eyes, then opened them again and struggled to sit up. "I tried to dream-walk myself, and got caught in my own dreams. Memories of a… a past life. Our past lives." She was silent for a moment, thinking. "The shape-shifter, he saved me. He pulled me out of there."

Max and Michael exchanged a look. Michael had been furious when Max returned and explained what he had done, who he had contacted. They knew nothing about this man, and his gifts were too dangerous, too suspicious. How did he know so much about them?

But he had saved Isabel, he had upheld his end of the bargain.

"Do we trust him?" Michael murmured under his breath.

Max hesitated, torn. Isabel was alive and safe and recovering. Still, this man was a mystery. "Not yet," he said at last. "But… maybe soon."

"What are you doing here?" Isabel asked weakly, drawing attention back to herself. "Is the camping trip over?"

"No. Alex told us you were sick. We came back," Max explained.

"Alex?" Isabel questioned. She remembered that he had been there earlier, but he was gone now.

"Yes," Max explained. "He protected you, made sure you stayed safe until we could get back. He… he took care of you."

Isabel smiled softly, "Really?" She leaned back against the pillows. She'd have to thank him for that, for everything he'd done for her.

"The dreams you said you had… memories of our past lives… what were they like?" Michael asked cautiously, speaking up and breaking the silence that had fallen.

Isabel frowned at Michael, then her gaze slid down to the yearbook lying on the floor, innocuous and innocent. She caught a glimpse of something, a flash of color, the smell of flowers, but then everything else faded, the dreams disappearing into her subconscious.

"I don't… I don't remember," she admitted. How could she have forgotten it all so quickly? She'd been trapped for what felt like an eternity and it was gone now. All… gone.

Then she remembered what it felt like to be trapped, to be unable to free herself from her own mind, and she shuddered involuntarily.

"And I'm not really sure I want to," she added. She knew those memories had been clues, and important ones at that, but she also knew, somehow, that if she tried to retrieve them, she might not come back from it.

Perhaps the dreams were lost. At least she herself was still there.

* * *

Next Chapter: The Aliens Among Us 

Due: Sun 4/15

Author's note: So I always wondered what would happen if Isabel tried to dream-walk herself. This was the best answer I could come up with, and that is where the idea for the entire part with Isabel being sick came from. Just curious if anyone else ever wondered that, or had any ideas for what the result of dream-walking oneself would be? Or if anyone knows if they talked about it on the show and I just missed that part?


	70. The Aliens Among Us

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Hmm… well, I was never really happy with this chapter, but I can't rewrite it forever. So, it isn't my best work. It is really two smaller chapters combined. The first part is sort of a wrap up for the last several chapters with the camping trip, and the next part begins the next segment of the plot. But they were too short to post individually, so I turned them into one chapter.

* * *

Chapter Sixty-Nine: The Aliens Among Us

Max watched as his mother carefully ladled soup into a bowl and set it in front of him on the table. He glanced down at the soup, then slanted a look at Isabel. She was staring down at her own hands, unwilling to meet anyone's gaze.

The clock on the wall struck seven o'clock, and Isabel looked up at it sharply.

It was Saturday night. The others had returned from their camping trip that afternoon. Liz had stopped by under the pretense of checking on Max, and informed them that everything had been fine for the rest of the trip, no one was really suspicious about their sudden absence. Later that day, Max had called Tess and explained what had happened, everything…

They'd agreed to meet Sunday morning at the cliffs to talk about the new information they had received, and to plan their next step.

But before then, they still had one other problem to take care of… And Max was not looking forward to it. The conversation had unnerved him, and left him upset and angry, but faced with the fact that there was little else he could do.

"_Max, Alex may have bought us time, but if your mother knows that you and Isabel are different, we need to act before she tells other people." Tess' voice was patient, but tinged with frustration because Max had refused to consider mind-warping his parents despite the threat the posed._

"_She won't tell anyone," Max argued._

"_She probably already told your father," Tess pointed out, her voice echoing through the phone lines._

"_They're not the enemy," Max hissed, lowering his voice as he glanced towards his bedroom door. He could hear the heavy tread of his father's footsteps on the stairs. They passed his room and stopped outside of Isabel's room, then a moment later he heard Isabel's door open and Mr. Evans quiet voice ask her how she was feeling._

"_No, but they'll start asking questions," Tess retorted. "And unless you want to tell them the truth…" She left the sentence hanging._

"_They're my parents, I can't do this to them," Max protested feebly._

"_God, Max, you are such a hypocrite!" Tess spat, her voice shaking with rage. "You had no problem telling me I had to mind-warp Jim to forget about the investigation after you healed Liz, and now you won't even consider mind-warping your own parents to forget what they saw and heard? What makes them so much more special than Jim?"_

_Max didn't answer. There wasn't really any answer he could give to that. _

_After a moment of silence, Tess continued in a gentler voice, "It's not going to hurt them. I promise."_

"_Sometimes it does. You've said before that excessive mind-warping can cause permanent brain damage or death," Max objected._

_Tess sighed. "Excessive, Max. If I try to convince someone to believe something they refuse completely to believe, and I have to continue mind-warping them for a long time… to keep them under control… then it is dangerous. But your parents want to protect you, so all I have to do is make them believe that forgetting this is the best way to keep you and Isabel safe."_

"_It won't hurt them?"_

"_No, it won't. I promise," Tess assured him._

The sound of a knock on the door brought Max back to the present, and he exchanged a quick glance with Isabel.

"I'll get it," Isabel said, standing quickly and moving away from the table. Max had come into her room after his conversation with Tess to tell her about the plan, and she was less than thrilled with the prospect. This wasn't just lying to their parents, this was using their gifts against the two people who had sworn to love them unconditionally forever. It was a betrayal of the very worst kind…

But what other choice did they have?

Isabel opened the door and saw Tess standing there. She tried to smile, but didn't quite manage it. Tess, who seemed to be more sympathetically disposed to Isabel than she had been to Max, reached out hand and placed it on Isabel's shoulder.

"You're keeping them safe too, Isabel," she whispered. "If they knew the truth, the FBI would target them."

Isabel nodded, and stepped aside, allowing Tess to enter.

Isabel lead Tess towards the dining room where her parents and Max sat. All eyes turned towards them, and Tess began the masquerade.

"I'm so sorry to interrupt dinner, Mrs. Evans," she said, addressing Diane. "I just wanted to stop by and see how Isabel was doing." She flashed an apologetic smile.

"That's so sweet of you," Mrs. Evans replied. "Would you care to join us for dinner? We can set out another place for you."

"Oh, no thank you. Jim, Kyle, and I are having dinner at seven-thirty, and I promised them I'd be there," Tess refused politely. She turned to Isabel. "I'm glad you're feeling better," she said.

"Thanks," Isabel replied, running a hand through her hair. "I'm glad, too."

Mr. and Mrs. Evans watched the exchange curiously. Mrs. Evans shook her head, lost in thought. Tess had been friends with her children once, many years ago. Right after she had first come to Roswell. They'd been a tight-knit group, clicking so instantly it had made Amy DeLuca comment that they must have been friends in some past life. But then they'd drifted apart, and she hadn't seen Tess much. In fact, it wasn't until very recently, when Isabel had suddenly become friends with Tess again, that the other blonde had started reappearing in her children's lives.

Was that just the way normal teenage friendships worked, or was there something else?

Mrs. Evans had always felt that there was something a little…different… about Tess. She'd been a sweet child, and as a teenager, she was still polite to adults, dedicated to her schoolwork and her friends, and devoted to her family. But she was also so guarded and distant, as though she just didn't trust anyone.

Maybe that had something to do with her past. Everyone knew that Tess was adopted, and most of the adults in town knew that her first set of adopted parents had died tragically in a car accident. That would be enough make anyone distrustful of humanity in general.

Mrs. Evans, however, knew a little bit more. She was probably one of the few adults in Roswell who knew that Tess had not been adopted by the Hardings until she was six. Most people assumed that she'd lived with them all her short life before the accident, and Jim had never really bothered to set anyone straight on the matter. But once, shortly after Tess had arrived in Roswell, but before Jim had formally adopted her, Mr. Evans had learned, through an acquaintance who worked for Child Protect Services, that Tess had been discovered wandering around the streets of Los Angeles, at the age of six, with no language and no memory.

Rather like Isabel and Max, although in a completely different state.

Was that part of the reason they clicked? They had this shared past experience? They couldn't have met before then since they were geographically so far apart, but it was possible they were both in the same horrible situation, separated only by the state lines.

Her children always claimed not to remember those six years, but what if that was a lie?

Child trafficking, kidnapping for black-market adoption, brothels…

How many other six-year-olds were wandering around random cities, having just escaped so horrible fate? And did they get adopted by loving parents? Or were they tossed into the foster care system to be forgotten by everyone? Or, worse, were they just never noticed?

"… in school on Monday."

Tess' words drew Mrs. Evans out of her thoughts, and she realized the other girl was saying goodbye.

"It was so nice of you to drop by," Mrs. Evans said warmly, offering a smile. Tess returned the smile with a nod, and slipped from the room.

Once concealed by the wall, the blonde alien closed her eyes and focused, letting her mind reach out towards the minds of the two adults in the other room. She felt so much radiating from them; fear, suspicion, concern, love…

A moment later, it was done. Memories altered, emotions amplified, other's suppressed…

Isabel Evans had been very sick, and her brother had caught a lighter version of the same flu.

And that was all.

* * *

The seven of them met at the cliffs Sunday afternoon. It was hot, even in the shade, and the sun was shinning brightly down on all of them. But they had to meet, and this was the safest place. 

Each person had taken their turn to recount any events in which they'd been involved. They'd offered explanations and possibilities for everything they'd learned, and in the end, Michael had summed up everything.

"So, these enemy aliens, who want to kill us all, are drawn to Atherton. They think he's a threat, they kill him. We come out of our pods, and they are somehow drawn to us. But they don't attack us. Instead, they meet up with a Native American and draw strange symbols on the side of a cave wall. Then, they find Tess, and they go and kill Andrew and Jessica." Here, Michael paused, shooting a quick look at Tess to gauge her reaction. She stared back, her expression unreadable, and Michael continued, "But they don't kill Tess. They just leave her."

"Meanwhile," Max cut in, "this shape-shifter has been kidnapped by the FBI. By someone named Pierce. And he's held in a white room, one that Michael saw in a vision. He escapes, and comes to Roswell looking for us. The other aliens are afraid of him, they call him the Protector. He's not completely trustworthy, but he's also no completely untrustworthy."

"He saved me," Isabel added. Then she glanced over at Michael. "But we also know now that he is the one who killed Deputy Hannigan. He's the one who left that button in the car, the one that you found that gave you the vision. And… he claims to be the one who killed Hank."

Michael's hands clenched into fists, but he didn't say anything.

"And he's probably the one who you saw kill someone in the alleyway," Max added quickly, referring to the night Isabel had first seen the glowing silver handprint all those weeks ago.

"And this Pierce?" Alex asked. "We don't think he's the same guy as the other Pierce?"

"He'd be too old," Michael replied.

"And we have no idea why the other enemy aliens didn't just kill us, or Tess, or where they are now?" Isabel murmured in frustration. For every answer they discovered, several more questions appeared.

"And you don't remember any of your dreams?" Maria pressed, glancing over at Isabel.

Isabel shook her head. "No," she admitted reluctantly. "I wish I did, but… It's probably not a good idea for me to go looking for them again." She gave a wan smile, and both Max and Michael nodded in emphatic agreement.

Liz, speaking up for the first time since the conversation started, added, "We still don't know what that orb is, or how Atherton had it, or why the other aliens were drawn to it. But… if we know they can sense where it is, is it really a good idea to have it with us?"

"They must already know where we are," Tess replied. "At this point, I think they're waiting for something. They aren't going to attack until that something happens."

"For all we know, they're already here," Alex added. "Hiding in plain sight, just like you."

Isabel shuddered at the comment.

"So… there isn't actually a whole lot that we do know, is there?" Michael said wearily, shaking his head.

"No," Max muttered, more to himself than to the others. "Not a whole lot."

* * *

Max watched idly as Liz and Maria walked through the hallway. Students milled about, talking to each other, getting caught up on the events of the previous weekend. Isabel had left only moments before to find Tess and her friends, and Michael had informed Max that morning that he would get his own ride to school, which probably meant that he would show up late. 

Liz smiled at Max when she caught sight of him watching her. She murmured something to Maria, who laughed and hit her on the arm, then slipped away into the crowd.

Liz approached Max and greeted him, "Hey."

"Hey, yourself," Max replied. "So… I was thinking of going to the Crashdown after school today. There's this girl there that I kind of like…"

"So I heard," Liz answered, biting back a smile.

"Any idea if she's working today?" Max pressed. He leaned back against the row of lockers, resting on the cold metal.

Liz raised an eyebrow. "I think she might be working the dinner shift," she replied, "but I'd have to check with her."

"Well, if she is, that would be perfect. Then I can check with Brody Davis to see if…"

Liz's expression darkened in concern. "Are you sure it's a good idea to continue with that, Max?" she interrupted softly, worry reflecting in her eyes. She leaned her head against Max's chest and continued, "It could be dangerous."

"I'll be careful," Max promised, brushing a strand of hair out of Liz's eyes. "But I did tell him I'd check back this week to see if he had a job for me."

Liz looked up at him and nodded reluctantly. Then she changed the subject abruptly and said, "By the way, my parents… would like it if… you came to dinner sometime… maybe tomorrow?"

Max raised an eyebrow, and agreed, "I'd love to."

* * *

"Max, wonderful, you came," Brody said happily, moving towards the door the moment Max appeared. His light brown hair stuck up in the back, and his large eyes seemed to resemble the eyes of a giant bug. His shirt was only half buttoned, and one of his shoelaces had come undone. 

Max frowned, surprised by the greeting, but stepped further into the UFO Center. "You have a job for me?" he asked curiously.

Brody nodded. "I finally got a nanny for my daughter, so I can devote more time to setting up." He gestured around the dust-covered room to the piles of boxes. "As you can see, there's a lot of work to do."

"Well, why don't you start by telling me exactly what you do, Mr. Davis," Max suggested idly, looking from box to box. "And then I can help you with it."

Brody beamed. "First of all, call me Brody." He walked back further into the room and frowned at the ceiling. "The electrician said the lights should be up and working later today, but for now we'll have to work with only the natural light from outside."

"That's fine," Max replied.

"This room," Brody continued, "will be the tourist part of the Center. I want to cover the walls with evidence of past sightings. You know, newspaper articles and the like." He turned and pointed to the back wall. "This space will be specifically dedicated to the Roswell crash."

"I see," Max murmured, nodding.

Brody pointed to the ceiling. "I'm going to put different constellations on the ceiling, perhaps with different colored lights…" He considered this for a moment, lost in thought. Then, without giving any indication that he had even paused to think about anything, he added, "And then the center of the room will have the exhibits."

"The exhibits?" Max echoed.

Brody nodded. "I have the most complete archive on alien sightings ever," he explained proudly. "But, of course, it all needs to be set up." He spun around sharply and glanced at Max. "So, kid, how much can you work?"

"Uh… how much do you need me to work?" Max asked.

Again, Brody paused, considering this. Then he shrugged and answered, "Let's just take it one day at a time and see where we end up, shall we?" he suggested.

Max couldn't help but think that sounded a lot like his relationship with Liz right now. His entire life was on pins and needles at the moment…

"So," Max asked casually, walking towards one of the boxes, "are the sightings real?"

Brody frowned at Max. "Did I read you wrong, kid? I thought you were a believer? If you're not…" he pointed towards the door, "I don't work with skeptics."

"Oh, I believe," Max rushed to assure Brody, worried he was about to lose his only opportunity to keep as eye on the new owner of the UFO Center. "_Some_ of the sightings are real. But some… some are just conspiracy theories and people wanting attention. And they muddy everything up."

Brody laughed, his face lighting up. "You remind me a lot of myself at your age," Brody said contemplatively. "There are real aliens out there, Evans. And I'm going to find them."

Throwing caution to the wind, Max asked curiously, "Why?"

"Why not?"

Max shook his head and elaborated, "I just meant… what are you going to do if you find them?" He walked over to the nearest box and opened it, glancing at the maps and newspaper articles carefully stored within.

Brody sighed and looked back towards the door that lead into the back room. He was silent for a moment, his face reflecting some internal indecision. Finally, he said, "Talk to them."

Max frowned, wanting to push the subject, but realizing that it might be too suspicious of a move. Instead, he suggested, "This entire place needs to be cleaned before we can put up the exhibits. Do you want me to start with that?"

Brody nodded absently. "Sure," he agreed, not really listening to Max anymore.

"And… should I clean the backroom as well?" Max asked cautiously, attempting to sound nonchalant as he indicated the door behind which he knew Brody was keeping his technological and scientific information.

Brody's entire demeanor changed rapidly. "No," he replied harshly. "It's off limits."

Max turned sharply to give his new boss a look, then replied, "Alright. It was just a suggestion…"

Brody flushed and had the grace to look ashamed at his reaction. "Sorry. I didn't mean to snap." He paused, then added, "But that room is off limits."

"Am I allowed to ask what you're doing with it?" Max questioned, trying to sound like he was simply joking.

Before Brody could answer, the sound of ringing through the room caught his attention, and he wandered around for a bit before locating the cell phone that was the source of the noise. He picked it up, glanced at the number, and answered the phone quickly.

"Hello? Is everything okay?... I see… No, that's fine… What time?" He paused to glance at the his wristwatch, then remarked, "Fine. We will be there then." He hung up and glanced over at Max, then back down at the phone.

"Everything alright?" Max inquired.

Brody sighed and gave a little shrug. "Just my daughter's doctor wanting to schedule an appointment for later today," he explained, but Max could tell that there was more to the story than that. Brody's face almost seemed to crumble as he said the words.

"Is she okay?" Max asked, already knowing the answer. He wondered what was wrong with her, but thought it best not to ask until he knew Brody a little better.

Brody gave Max a hard stare, then turned away. He didn't answer Max's question, and instead remarked, "I'll go find up a pair of brooms and some dust clothes," and disappeared through the door into the backroom.

Max stared after him, unsure of what to say.

* * *

Next Chapter: Meet the Family 

Due: Wed 4/25


	71. Meet the Family

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's Note: So, my motherboard was having some problems, and I had to take my computer to the technology services people on campus. And, since I was under warranty, it wasn't a big deal to just get another motherboard. But it meant that I had to leave my computer with them for three days. Three days without a computer... who knew it would be so hard? Clearly, we are slaves to technology.

* * *

Chapter Seventy: Meet the Family

Max ran a hand over his slacks, smoothing out any wrinkles, and drew a slow breath. He stared at his reflection in the mirror, eyeing his combed hair critically. He patted it with one hand, trying to flatten it a bit, but it didn't seem to want to lay down.

The sound of stifled laughter caused him to spin around, and he saw Isabel standing in the doorway, leaning against the wall and smirking at him.

"What's so funny?" Max snapped irritably.

"Max, you're having dinner with Liz's family, not facing a firing squad. _Relax_," Isabel replied, struggling to appear sympathetic to her brother's obvious worries.

Max narrowed his eyes into a glare and retorted, "Easy for you to say. Your future with the person you love isn't about to be decided tonight."

Isabel rolled her eyes and stepped into the room, taking a seat on the bed. "Melodramatic, aren't we?" she remarked. "I sincerely doubt that Jeff and Nancy Parker are going to ban you from there house and Liz's life, no matter how much you screw up tonight."

"Thank you, Isabel. Your confidence in me is touching," Max shot back sarcastically.

Isabel smiled, but then winced and raised a hand to her head, blinking a few times and gingerly rubbing her temples as a headache washed through her.

Max was at her side in a moment, concern reflecting in his eyes. "Are you alright?" he asked in a gentle whisper, leaning down next to her.

Isabel forced a smile and replied, "Just a headache. Reminders of my trip through my own dreams is all." She leaned her head against Max's chest and sighed. "Don't ever let me do anything that stupid again."

"You didn't know it would end up the way it did," Max pointed out logically. Then he grinned and added, "But, trust me, I don't intend on letting you risk your life again."

"Mm," Isabel murmured, pushing herself back into a sitting position. "I'm so tired, I just want to curl up and sleep for the next twenty years." She climbed somewhat unsteadily to her feet and said, "I'm going to go lay down until the world stops spinning." She took a few wobbling steps and muttered, "This dizziness had better stop soon."

"Well, serves you right for being stupid enough to dream-walk yourself without knowing what the consequences would be," Max called after her, turning back to his reflection in the mirror.

"I thought you said this wasn't my fault?" Isabel asked curiously, glancing at her brother over her shoulder, one arm supporting her against the wall, the other extended to keep her balance.

"It's not," Max answered with a shrug. "But that doesn't mean I'm not going to blame you for it."

Isabel laughed and rolled her eyes again. "Good luck on that dinner. Try not to make a complete fool of yourself," she mocked as she left the room.

Max frowned. "Believe me, Izzy, I'm really praying that I don't," he muttered under his breath.

* * *

Sean glanced up at the knock on his hotel door. Expecting Maria, he strode over and pulled the door open quickly, barely glancing at the person standing before him. Then he did a double take, eyes widening, and sputtered, "Sheriff…"

"Call me Jim," Valenti replied simply. "Can I come in?"

"Oh, certainly," Sean said hurriedly, stepping aside and allowing the Sheriff to enter the room. Frowning at the mess of newspapers and clothing scattered over the sofa and table, he continued, "The room generally doesn't look like this. I've just been busy lately…" He couldn't explain what he'd been busy with, he didn't think the Sheriff would be to thrilled to learn he'd been sneaking around the woods rendezvousing with students and invading peoples dreams. Even if it was to save her life…

Valenti looked around and shrugged. "I'm not a particularly clean person myself. In fact, all the cooking, cleaning, and general household management skills in the family belong to my daughter, Tess."

Sean lifted a few shirts from one of the chairs and gestured for Valenti to sit down. Then he took a seat across from the other man and asked, "So, what can I do for you?"

"I was just at the hospital," Valenti explained. "Visiting Amy. She's being released tomorrow. She'll have to go back for physically therapy, and she still has a long road to recovery, but…" He let the sentence drift, a soft smile gracing his features. Finally, he said, "She's expected to make a full recovery."

"That's wonderful," Sean exclaimed, trying his best to act the part of the relieved, estranged husband.

"Yes," Valenti agreed. "It really is." He eyed Sean thoughtfully, then remarked, "Amy told me everything."

"Everything?" Sean echoed, surprised and unsure what the Sheriff meant.

Valenti nodded and looked away. "About what really happened to her, who Maria's real father is, why you really left." He paused, the added, "And she told me how wonderful you're being to Maria." Sighing, he muttered, "So I guess I can't really consider you scum anymore."

"I… thank you," Sean replied, not really sure what he was supposed to say to that.

Valenti narrowed his eyes. "But that doesn't mean I like you. I know you love Amy, and I know she loves you. But I love her, and she loves me, and I'm not giving up on her unless she tells me to."

Sean allowed a small smile to tug at the corners of his lips. "I see," he remarked, eyes twinkling. "Is this a threat?"

Valenti shook his head. "Consider it a friendly warning," he answered. "If there's a face-off between the two of us, I'm in." He stood, nodding to Sean, and concluded, "Have a good day." And he walked out of the room, leaving Sean staring after him in amusement.

* * *

"Come in, Max," Mrs. Parker said, opening the door and stepping aside. "I'm so glad you could join us for dinner."

Max fumbled with the flowers he had brought and the small bottle of sparkling cider he was carrying under one arm. "Here, I brought…" He extended both gifts, and Mrs. Parker accepted them graciously.

"Thank you, Max, that was very considerate." She bestowed a benevolent smile on him and turned to Mr. Parker, who had just appeared behind her, "Max brought flowers and sparkling cider. I see our Lizzie has good taste."

Max silently thanked Isabel for informing him that he needed to show up with gifts.

"Well, we've met before, of course, but I don't really feel that I've ever had the chance to get to know you," Mr. Parker said, stepping forward and extending a hand. "It's a pleasure to have you here tonight."

Max shook his head and remembered his manners enough to reply, "Thank you so much for inviting me."

Mrs. Parker disappeared and Liz took her place. She gave Max a warm smile and quickly hugged him, whispering in his ear, "My parents promised not to terrorize you, so everything should be okay."

Max almost laughed and followed Liz and Mr. Parker to the dining room table. The table was intricately set with more forks and spoons at each place than Max supposed his family had in their entire house. For one panicked moment, he realized he was completely unequipped for this formal of a meal.

But Liz gave him a smile and gestured for him to take the seat across from her, and he almost sagged in relief as he slipped into the chair.

"So, Max, Liz tells me that you are working at the UFO Center?" Mr. Parker said as Mrs. Parker moved into the kitchen to bring out the first course.

"Yes, I am," Max replied, slanting a look at Liz. "I just started this week, so I don't… I don't really know what it will entail yet."

"Are you interested in aliens?" Mrs. Parker asked, returning with a salad. She placed it on the table and took her seat.

"Of course he is," Mr. Parker cut in. "It's Roswell. Everyone's interested in aliens." He took a sip of water and glanced at Max expectantly, as though waiting for something. After a momentary pause, he continued, "I hear this Mr. Davis is quite the alien nut. You'll have to let us know what his conspiracy theories are."

"Right…" Max looked from Mr. Parker to Mrs. Parker. Both of them were staring at him, waiting for something, but he had no idea what it was, and didn't want to make the wrong move.

Liz, however, came to his rescue, placing a light hand on his arm and saying, "Max, would you like to start the salad?" Lowering her voice, she added in a whisper, "Guests first."

Max nodded, feeling the heat slowly creeping up his neck and into his face. He picked up the salad tongs and carefully placed some of the salad onto his plate. A carrot escaped him, falling from the tongs, hitting the side of the plate, and landing by his knife. Mortified, he quickly picked it up and placed it back on his plate, then passed the salad along.

There were three forks. Two by the side of his plate, and one at the top.

The Parkers owned a diner. Shouldn't they… shouldn't they be eating burgers and fries like any other normal American family?

Mr. and Mrs. Parker exchanged glances as Liz served herself the salad. They were hardly an upper class family, nobody in Roswell was. But they had insisted on a fancy dinner tonight, against Liz's wishes. After all, if they had promised their daughter that they wouldn't interrogate Max too harshly, they should at least reserve the right to overwhelm him.

Kyle had been put through the same ordeal when he first started dating Liz. Ironically, he'd passed with flying colors. Jim had later informed them that Kyle himself knew absolutely nothing about table manners, but before he had attended the dinner, he'd convinced Tess to explain to him everything she knew about formal dinners. Apparently, he'd simply relied on everything she said, and it had worked out well for him.

Max, fortunately, had a sister as well, and sisters seemed to know much more about this sort of thing than brothers.

Max stared at the forks and recalled Isabel's advice.

_If there's more than one of the same type of utensil, start at the outside and work in. Salad fork, than dinner fork. If there's anything at the top of the plate, that is for dessert._

Max picked up the salad fork and stared at it for a moment, praying that Isabel had been right.

Then he remembered another part of her advice.

_Never start eating until everyone has been served._

He put the fork down gently and waited until Mrs. Parker finished serving herself the salad. Was he allowed to start eating now?

In his family, you didn't take second-helpings until everyone had firsts, but you were allowed to start eating the moment you were served.

Isabel's third bit of advice:

_If in doubt, follow the hostess' lead._

He waited until Mrs. Parker began eating, then he too took a bite of the salad. He chewed on the lettuce for a moment, then, remembering something else Isabel had advised him, swallowed and complimented Mrs. Parker, "The salad is delicious."

Mrs. Parker inclined her head to him and replied, "Thank you." She took a sip of water, then asked, "So, Max, do you have any idea of what you want to do after high school?"

"Um… college?" Max replied. He wasn't entirely sure what she was asking. Of course he was going to go to college.

Assuming the FBI didn't catch him first.

Mr. Parker jumped in and asked, "What are you going to study?"

"I'm not really sure," Max admitted. He wondered if that was a bad thing. Liz wanted to be a molecular biologist, so she would study molecular biology. She'd known that since day one. Was Max also supposed to know? Was he supposed to pretend that he knew? Did everyone else have a plan?

He pushed away the panicked thoughts and glanced at Liz. She was smiling back at him. He gave her a silent plea for help.

"You know, Dad, not everyone knows what they want to do…" Liz interjected.

Mr. Parker nodded, but Mrs. Parker said, "Well, Alex wants to be a computer programmer or something like that. Maria wants to sing, doesn't she? Kyle wants to play football."

"Yes, but Kyle doesn't know what he wants to do after football," Liz pointed out.

Max momentarily closed his eyes, wondering how they'd managed to get onto the subject of Liz's ex-boyfriend.

This was going to be a long night.

* * *

Once again, a knock at the door caught Sean's attention. He turned and walked over to the door, sighing. Was it Valenti coming back to run him out of town? He almost laughed at the idea of the Sheriff attempting to beat him in any type of physical contest. The backwards Sheriff of this pathetically human town couldn't replace him as…

He let the thoughts trail off as he realized in surprise and some horror that he was actually entertaining the thought of fighting with Valenti for Amy's affection. Clearly, he'd been playing this part a bit too long.

He shook his head, bringing himself back to the present, and opened the door to find Maria and Michael standing on the other side, holding two paper bags. The hallway was filled with the aroma of Chinese food.

"I wasn't sure if you had plans, and Michael and I ordered Chinese food…" Maria explained, giving Sean a hesitant smile. "I invited Liz, but she and Max were having dinner with her parents," she added, mostly as an afterthought.

"Chinese sounds wonderful," Sean said, opening the door and letting Maria and Michael enter. "Maybe we can have dinner with Liz later in the week."

Maria sat down, opening the bag and pulling out several containers of takeout. A smile lit up her face as she placed the food on the table, distributing chop sticks and fortune cookies.

"You're in a very good mood," Sean remarked as he took a seat across from her. Michael remained standing, staring out the window at the darkening sky, a strange expression on his face. Maria didn't seem to notice her boyfriend's absence.

"My Mom's coming home tomorrow," Maria replied lightly. "I was going to have a celebratory dinner with her but…" She stopped abruptly and glanced at Sean, her face flushing bright red as though she was too embarrassed to finish the sentence.

It took Sean a moment to understand why she had stopped, and then he said softly, "But the Sheriff is having dinner with her?"

Maria nodded, lowering her eyes slightly.

Michael, turning to give Sean a penetrating stare, asked suspiciously, "How did you know that?"

Sean shrugged, inwardly wondering why Michael's attitude was so distant right now. Was he starting to suspect? If he was, that problem would need to be addressed, and soon. He couldn't afford to lose anyone's trust, not when he was so close.

"Jim Valenti stopped by this afternoon," he answered.

Michael accepted this answer in silence as he took a seat next to Maria. She was giving him a confused look, obviously she hadn't missed the accusation in his tone. He couldn't explain it, but something about Sean just rubbed him the wrong way. As far as he knew, this man had been nothing but incredibly caring and kind to Maria, and Maria was really starting to like him, but…

Something was just…

Different.

He couldn't mention it to Maria. He couldn't tell her that he was suspicious of the person she was starting to think of as her father. He couldn't explain it to her because he could barely explain it to himself.

Maybe he was just paranoid. He'd had these feelings about Sean before, and everyone had told him that it was just his concern for Maria making him think this.

So why couldn't he shake the feeling?

Maria's exclamation of surprise brought him back to the present. She spilled soy sauce on her shirt. Jumping up quickly, she said, "I'm going to go wash this out before it stains. I'll be right back," and disappeared into the bathroom.

Sean watched her go, then turned to Michael. He frowned at the taciturn teenager, and asked in concern, "Are you alright, Michael? You seem very… tense."

"It's just been a busy couple weeks," Michael replied stoically, refusing to say anything more on the subject. He stared down at the table, idly playing with a pair of chopsticks.

Sean accepted this for a moment, then said, "I heard about your father… I mean, Hank. I'm sorry for your loss." Michael turned to stare at Sean in complete surprise, clearly not expecting that comment, and the older man rushed to explain, "Maria told me that he died at the hospital."

Michael shrugged. "Yeah, well… happens."

Sean spooned some of the rice into a bowl and handed it to Michael. "I'm surprised you didn't ask Maria to go to the funeral with you," he commented, now adding rice to his own bowl.

Michael frowned. "What funeral?"

Sean looked up, startled, and replied, "For Hank. I thought… well, I just assumed that you would have gone…" He knew perfectly well that Michael hadn't gone, but he feigned confusion as he watched Michael register the remark.

Michael sighed. Hank had died about two weeks ago, but everything had just been so… strange. This mysterious shape-shifter contacting them, Brody Davis moving in, concerns about Agent Pierce and Ms. Topolski's disappearance… He hadn't even considered the possibility that Hank would have a funeral.

He wondered, even if he had known, would he have gone?

"I was too busy," Michael said at last. He looked over at Sean, who was pouring orange juice into three glasses, and added, "It's been a hectic lately."

"Of course," Sean replied. He didn't say anything for a moment, just glanced over at the bathroom. They could hear the sound of running water, and knew that Maria was still struggling to remove that soy sauce stain. Then Sean looked back down at the table and said casually, "But sometimes it's nice to get closure."

A moment later, Maria came out of the bathroom and took her seat at the table. Michael glanced at her, then back at Sean, a small frown appearing on his features.

Sean smiled inwardly. He knew that the other alien was slightly suspicious of him, and that could become a problem in the future. But if he could just distract Michael… give him other things to worry about… such as Hank's death… then there was less of a chance that he'd have the time of inclination to worry about any of that suspicion.

Maria started talking, and he turned his attention back to her, missing the thoughtful look Michael was giving him.

* * *

"You did fine, Max," Liz whispered as she hugged him goodbye at the door. Mr. and Mrs. Parker stood a few steps behind them, consciously averting their attention so that Max and Liz could whisper in private.

Max shook his head. "I spilled juice on the table cloth," he replied, still horrified that he'd managed to so clumsily knock over the glass.

"Only a little bit," Liz replied. The glass had been almost empty.

"I didn't know enough to keep up with the politics discussion, I couldn't remember anything about Monet when your mother started talking about he painting in the living room, I don't know what I want to study in college…" Max shook his head in despair.

"But you were so cute when you were fumbling for words," Liz murmured with a smirk. "All bright red and sweating…" Max glared at her and she sighed. "You did fine, Max."

Max stepped away from her and extended his hand to Mr. Parker. "Thank you for the dinner, it was delicious," he said.

"We're so glad you could join us," Mrs. Parker replied. She placed a hand on Liz's shoulder, pulling the girl away from the door and allowing Max to leave. "We should do this again sometime."

"I'd love to," Max answered, inwardly thinking that there was no chance in hell he would ever allow himself to sit through another ordeal like that one.

After Max had left and Liz had gone up to her room, Mr. Parker said softly, "Lizzie really likes him."

"He seems like a sweet boy," Mrs. Parker added. "And he stayed through the entire dinner… even after spilling the juice."

"I suppose this means we should be accepting of him as Liz's boyfriend," Mr. Parker decided with a gloomy sigh. "She's growing up."

"Yes," Mrs. Parker agreed. "She is. She's changing, too."

* * *

Next Chapter: Who We Become

Due: Thurs 5/3


	72. Who We Become

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Remember Nick? That reporter looking into the disappearance of Justin Drake (Amy DeLuca's doctor). The one with the expressed interest in Michael. Well, he's back…

* * *

Chapter Seventy-One: Who We Become

Isabel sat on the edge of her bed and stared out of the window, watching as the sunlight fell across the branches of the tree near the side of the house. She could hear the sounds of footsteps on the floor below her, the sharp knock of knuckles on wood as someone appeared at their door, the rustle of the wind through the tree branches.

She glanced at the yearbook that lay on the floor near her bed. She'd picked it up last night, thinking she'd do some dream-walking, but hadn't managed to find the courage necessary to enter anyone's dream. She knew, as long as she didn't dream-walk herself, everything would be fine, but she was still wary, and she couldn't shake the illogical fear that plagued her. She supposed it was only normal, given what she'd been through, but she really wanted to get over it soon. She relied on dream-walking as a way of relaxing at night (and hadn't Max always told her she needed to stop using her gifts like that?) and she wanted that comfort back.

School had been long, and the only thing that had allowed her to successfully make it through her classes without falling into a boredom-induced stupor was the few bits and pieces that Max had told her about his dinner with the Parkers the night before. He'd only made a fool out of himself a few times, and Liz had promised that he had passed the test, but…

It was still quite amusing to see him blush crimson red as he relayed the story about the spilled juice or the runaway carrot…

The sound of footsteps in the hallway outside her door pulled her from her thoughts, and she looked up in surprise. There was a knock on the door, and she called out, "Come in." The door swung open to reveal Alex.

She gave him a smile and gestured for him to enter the room. He stepped inside, closing the door softly behind him, and took a seat on her desk chair.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, twisting his fingers somewhat nervously as he studied her still slightly pale features.

"Much better," Isabel replied. "I… I wanted to say thank you. I heard what you did, keeping me safe. And I… well, I just… thanks." She stammered through the thank you, flushing red in embarrassment when she wasn't able to form a complete sentence.

"You're welcome," Alex replied. "I'm glad you're okay." There was an awkward silence, then he continued, "So… interesting weekend everyone just had."

Isabel gave an ironic chuckle and murmured wry, "Tell me about it." She rubbed her eyes wearily and asked, "So, how have you been? I mean, besides all this… alien stuff."

"Okay, I guess," Alex answered with a shrug. He didn't really know what else to say, but Isabel was staring at him, clearly waiting for him to continue, so he added, "We've been practicing… my band, I mean."

Isabel blinked, struggling to recall the name of Alex's band. Finally, she said, "Right, the Whits. How's that going? Having fun with the guitar?"

Alex smiled inwardly at the fact that Isabel knew the name of his band. That had to mean something, right? She'd only heard them play once, and at the time she'd been flirting with that guy… what was his name… John something-or-other? He hadn't expected Isabel to remember anything about that night at all.

"Um… it's going well," he replied.

"Are you guys playing again? At… um… It was Crisco's, right?" Isabel questioned, shifting backwards on the bed until she was resting against the headboard. She pulled her knees into her chest, and rested her chin on her hands. Her head was starting to ache a bit, but it had been doing that off and on since her voyage into her own dreams. She supposed it was just an unpleasant side-effect, and would go away soon enough.

"Next week, actually," Alex answered, oblivious to Isabel's headache. He was just pleased that she seemed to remember so much about his hobby. "Would you like to come?"

"Yeah, that sounds like fun," Isabel agreed.

Another knock on the door caused both Alex and Isabel to break off their conversation. Isabel hadn't heard anyone knock at the front door, and she knew Max and her father were both out of the house, so she assumed that it had to be her mother. She was therefore surprised when the door opened and Sara and Jessica stepped into the room.

Obviously she had been to engrossed in her conversation with Alex to hear them enter the house on the floor below. Now, she stared at the apprehensively, wondering how they would take to Alex's presence.

Not surprisingly, Jessica fixed Alex with a mocking stare and said, "Oh, sorry, Izzy, I didn't realize you had company."

"Alex just dropped by to see how I was feeling," Isabel explained.

"Oh, that's so… _sweet_… of him," Sara remarked. She glanced from Isabel to Alex, and asked, "Are you sure we're not interrupting anything?"

Isabel felt heat creep into her face, but she managed to reply, "We were just talking. Alex was telling me that his band in performing next week."

"Oh, you play in a band?" Jessica said, feigning excitement. Then she shrugged and sat down next to Isabel on the bed. "A computer geek who plays in a band. That's pretty rare. What do you play?"

"Um… guitar," Alex answered, feeling incredibly uncomfortable. He looked at Isabel, who was staring back at him in silence, and added, "Um, I should probably go. I'll see you tomorrow, Isabel."

"Okay," Isabel answered slowly. She glanced at Sara and Jessica. It wasn't as though anything they had said was particularly mean, it was the way they had said it, their mocking tone of voice. Clearly, they didn't consider Alex someone with whom it was worth hanging out.

Alex got up and left the room, and as he closed the door behind him, he heard Jessica whisper, "You could get any guy, Izzy, and you go for _him_? Clearly you need to set your sights a little higher." He closed the door before he could hear Isabel's answer.

Walking down the stairs, he couldn't help but wonder why he was so infatuated with Isabel. He'd never had a crush like this before. When he first started liking her, it had been alright because she was Max's brother and Michael's friend, and that was it. But now… now she was Tess' friend, and Sara and Jessica and Trudy's friend. Now she was part of _that_ group. Now she was out of his league.

Isabel had changed as well. She wasn't the same. More and more, she was fitting into some other group, becoming some other person. A person he wasn't quite as fond of…

At the bottom of the stairs, he ran into Mrs. Evans, who gave him a smile and cheerfully wished him a good afternoon.

And it made him realize that Isabel wasn't the only one who was changing.

He'd manipulated Mrs. Evans to keep her from going to the doctor when Isabel was sick. And now that Tess had mind-warped her, now that she remembered nothing, Alex didn't even feel the least bit guilty. He was… relieved. He didn't care that she'd been lied to, he didn't even really care that her mind had been tampered with… He just cared that Isabel was safe.

He stepped out into the bright sun, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the light.

Maybe he wasn't so fond of the person Isabel was becoming. But he wasn't entirely fond of the person he was becoming either.

* * *

Michael stared at the grave in front of him. It was a simple stone, obviously no one had had much in the way of money to pay for a elaborate grave marker. The grave was still fresh, the dirt and grass slightly raised. Almost every other grave in the cemetery had flowers or ribbons, but this one was empty… uncared for… 

The irony of that was not lost on Michael. In life, Hank had never cared for anyone or anything besides himself. In death, there was no one to care for him.

He didn't know why he was there. He didn't have anything to say. This man was hardly his father, and now that he was gone, Michael barely even noticed. In all honesty, he'd stopped thinking about Hank the moment he'd been granted emancipation. He was free, and at the time, that had been all that mattered to him. After all, Hank had only even been an obstacle to overcome.

But now…

The past two weeks, with everything that had happened, he'd barely had time to think about anything not strictly alien related. He was scrambling to make ends meet so that he could pay for his apartment and his food, and with all the alien stuff thrown into the mix…

But that mysterious shape-shifter had told Alex that he had killed Hank. This wasn't an accidental death, this was murder. And didn't that change things?

Did it?

He wasn't sure. He had no idea what to think anymore. He didn't even really want to be here, thinking any of these complicated questions. If Sean hadn't brought it up the night before, he wouldn't even be considering any of this…

But Sean had a point, maybe he did need closure.

Sean had helped Maria with everything she was going through, so much more than anyone else had been able to. He seemed to know the right thing to say, and he seemed to know when to not say anything at all. And even if Michael didn't completely trust him, even if he did think there was something a little off about the guy… maybe he was actually right about this.

He looked back at Hank's grave.

He hadn't deserved this. He deserved a lot of things… several years in jail for child abuse, perhaps. But murder… and to be murdered because of something he had no control over… just because he'd taken in the wrong boy… an alien…

He'd threatened to tell the FBI or the Sheriff about Michael's abilities, even though Michael wasn't a threat to him, wasn't a threat to anyone. And maybe that meant that he deserved to have Tess play with his mind. Maybe that meant that he deserved to never be trusted. Maybe that meant that he was, quite simply, a horrible person.

But he didn't deserve this.

Michael sighed. He'd brought this on Hank, just as much as the man had brought it on himself. And maybe that was why he was here. Maybe there was something he wanted to say.

"I'm sorry."

The two words lingered in the air for a moment, filling the silence, before fading away. Michael drew a slow breath, exhaled, then turned and walked away from the grave, never looking back.

* * *

Amy DeLuca stood on shaky legs and walked the distance of the hallway, the nurses and her new doctor watching with a critical eye. She turned around near the main doors and walked back, her face lighting up at the smiles she was receiving. Her doctor stepped forward and gave her a thumbs up sign, reaching out to catch her arm and support her as she moved back towards her room. 

"Well, Ms. DeLuca, we're all going to miss one of our favorite patients, but I think it's time to let you go," he said, pleased with her recovery. Gesturing towards one of the nurses, he continued, "Janet here will tell you everything you need to know about what you need to do at home. After you're released from here, she'll take you up to your physical therapist who has to sign you out as well. Then you're free to go home." He paused, consulting the chart for a moment, then asked, "Would you like me to call your husband, daughter, or the Sheriff to come pick you up? Or perhaps someone else? A family friend?"

Amy hesitated. Dinner with Jim last night had been wonderful, but she knew that he would be at work now, and she wasn't sure that they were far enough in their relationship for her to pull him away from his job to help her. With Sean around, she still wasn't even sure what her relationship with the Sheriff was. Calling Sean would have also made sense, had things between them been better, but right now she felt like she was also stringing him along, refusing to give him an answer about anything.

Of course, hadn't she been doing that for that last sixteen years?

"Call Maria," she requested at last. "If she doesn't answer, then can you just call me a taxi? Jim and Sean are both busy, I don't want to trouble them…"

"Certainly, Ms. DeLuca," the doctor said. He handed the chart to Nurse Janet, gave Amy one last reassuring smile, and walked away.

As the doctor left, an amused voice said, "You know, I'm not so busy that I wouldn't be able to drive you back to your home…"

Amy turned around in surprise to see Sean standing in front of her. She opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't think of the right words. Something about his eyes unsettled her, and she frowned slightly, not sure what to think.

"I just came by to see when you were being released and if you needed anything," Sean explained. "I saw you walking in the hall. That's impressive."

"Yes, I am pleased. I don't even need a wheelchair," Amy replied, allowing the nurse to lead her and Sean into her hospital room. "Although I'm supposed to take it easy and only walk when I absolutely have to. Give my body time to readjust."

"Well, I think you should definitely listen to the doctor on that one," Sean agreed, closing the door behind him.

Nurse Janet glanced between the two adults, and said, "You know what, this paperwork and whatnot can wait. I'll give you two a few minutes…" She let the sentence trail off as she walked towards the door.

Although everyone who knew Amy DeLuca knew the story of her deadbeat husband's return, few had actually seen the two of them interact. Nurse Janet found him charming and carrying, and couldn't help but wonder why he would have left in the first place. And even Amy seemed nicer to him that she would be to someone that had just abandoned her… There was more to the story, Janet decided, and she couldn't help but be curious about what it was.

However, unlike pretty much every other nurse in the hospital, she wasn't a gossip, and if Amy wasn't going to confide in her, she wasn't going to pry. She'd just give them some time and space to talk, and then see if anyone mentioned anything later.

Amy and Sean watched her go in silence, then Amy said, "You really didn't have to come. Maria will pick me up."

"It's not a problem," Sean objected with a shrug. "I don't have much else to do in the meantime." When Amy didn't reply right away, he added hesitantly, "Unless you don't want me to be here…"

"It isn't that," Amy rushed to assure him, "I just…" Again, she wasn't entirely sure what to say. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she murmured, "Things are really complicated right now."

Sean nodded in agreement. "I know. But we need to talk, Amy. We can't just avoid this subject forever." He took a seat across from her and stared at her tired eyes. They were shadowed slightly, dark circles under her eyes conveying her exhaustion.

"I don't know what there is to talk about, Sean. I filed for divorce. I sent you the papers. You just have to sign them…" Amy swallowed and looked down at her hands. Of course, it wasn't that simple. It would have been, had she not been in the car accident, had Sean not been forced to come out here. But now he was here, and things were different.

"Can't we at least talk about it?" Sean requested. "I mean… I understand that you started dating Jim Valenti, that you moved on. And I know that the reason you finally sent me those papers is because you started dating the Sheriff. I respect that. But… sixteen years, Amy. That's a long time, and I think we should at least talk. I think I deserve that."

Amy nodded, closing her eyes for a moment as the movement caused her some discomfort. "I know you do," she agreed. "But what did you think would happen if we talked. I love you, and I think I always will, but… we aren't the same people anymore Sean. And the past sixteen years haven't even been… we haven't been together. We're not a family."

"We could be. We _should_ be," Sean countered.

"Sean, we were just fooling ourselves, thinking that this would ever work out again. After all this time… You'd hate Roswell, and I don't want to leave. And… everyone in this town thinks you just abandoned me."

Sean gave a wry smile and commented dryly, "Yes, I've noticed the glares and angry whispering."

Amy gave an apologetic look and replied, "Well, I had to tell them something…" She sighed, letting out the breath slowly. She told everyone in this town that Sean had made a lousy husband, had just abandoned her after he found out she was pregnant, that she had moved on and he wasn't family anymore… and somehow, in the last sixteen years, she had managed to convince her self of that as well. No matter how much either of them wanted to go back, they couldn't. It just wasn't that simple anymore.

Sean leaned forward and took Amy's hands in his own. He stared into her eyes and said, "Amy, I know that there isn't a future for us." She gave him a startled look, and he explained, "I think, on some level, I've known that all along. This whole thing with us staying married… it was just a charade, a way for the two of us to hold on to something that doesn't exist anymore. We are over, and I accept that."

"If you accept that, then what is the problem?" Amy asked, confused and slightly dismayed that he was giving up so easily. She didn't want to be with him, but that didn't mean that she wanted him to just let her go. She wanted him to want to stay and fight. She wanted him to want her so much that she would actually have to force him to leave.

"The problem is that it isn't the two of us anymore," Sean replied. "It's Maria as well. And I can't just leave her again."

Amy bit her lip. She hadn't really been expecting that. "But she's not yours, Sean," she protested. "You don't have an obligation to her."

"It isn't about obligation," Sean answered. "She's an amazing girl, Amy, and I… I love her. She doesn't have a father, but I am the closest thing she's got. I won't walk out of her again."

"You've been spending a lot of time with her," Amy realized in surprise. She knew that Sean had spoken to Maria on numerous occasions, but she hadn't really understood how close they'd become.

"I have," Sean admitted. Then he added, almost hesitantly, "And she is mine, Amy. Not biologically, but… These sixteen years, I've thought of her just as much as I thought of you. I have every picture of her that you've ever sent me, I remember every story you've ever told… She's always been mine."

Amy listened to this is silence. It was complicated, she realized, and even if she and Sean didn't have a future, she couldn't deprive Maria of the right to know her him. Her daughter would never have a father, but maybe Sean was the next best thing.

"We don't have to talk about this right now," Sean said, standing up. "I'll let Maria come and pick you up, give you some time and space to think about all this. Just… don't plan our future without thinking of _our_ daughter, okay?"

"Okay," Amy whispered.

Sean left the room, and she leaned back on the bed. The things he had said, the way he had said them, it had been so… _Sean_. It had taken her back to when they first met, when they were young, and he always claimed that even complicated things had a solution.

And yet, despite this, she still couldn't help but think that something was different. She knew him, and even if she hadn't seen him in sixteen years, she knew that something was off. She just didn't know what it was. Maybe he'd just changed, maybe he'd forgotten the past…

But when he first came, when she first suspected that something just wasn't right about him, she'd mentioned that she was pleased they'd caught the man who'd done this to her, Maria's father… and Sean had agreed. Even though they both knew that the guy was still out there, possibly hurting other women… How had he forgotten that? If he still thought of her so much, how had he forgotten that incredibly important part of the story?

She loved him, even if she had moved on. And he loved Maria, and Maria probably deeply cared for him. They could be a family again, and she couldn't deprive Maria of that chance. But…

But something was wrong, and until she knew what it was, she couldn't let him back into her life. She just couldn't take the risk that she wasn't being paranoid, that something really was off… It would devastate Maria too much.

For her daughter's sake, she needed to find out what was going on with Sean, and she needed to figure it out soon.

* * *

Liz adjusted her alien-antenna headband and glanced around the crowded diner. As usual, it was rapidly filling up with high school students who had nothing better to do in the afternoon. Only a few moments ago, Maria had received a call from the hospital telling her that her mother was being released, and she'd left without a second thought. While Liz was ecstatic that Amy was coming home today, Maria's sudden departure did leave her as one of only two waitresses, and she was slightly overwhelmed. On top of that, Michael was supposed to work the grill, and he hadn't showed up yet. 

She walked up to the first booth in her section and offered the occupants a forced smile. It was Tess and the guy she had been dating… what was his name… Chris? They both looked up at Liz, Chris with a genuine smile, and Tess with her trademark bored look.

"What can I get you two?" Liz asked, trying to sound upbeat and cheerful.

"Cherry coke, please," Chris ordered politely. He glanced at Tess, who gave a small shrug, and corrected, "Make that two cherry cokes."

"Coming right up," Liz replied as she moved onto the next booth. After taking several more orders, she walked towards the kitchen, deposited the order-slips on the counter, and leaned her head on her hands.

"Long day?" a voice asked.

Liz glanced up to see Michael coming in through the backdoor, a smirk on his face. He gave her a brief once-over as he hung his coat on a hook near the door and moved towards the grill.

"You're late," Liz accused.

"I had stuff to do," Michael replied, his tone making it clear that he wasn't going to elaborate on what exactly that stuff was, but that it was important and he hadn't simply flaked out.

"Amy was just released from the hospital, and Maria went to pick her up, so we're short a waitress," Liz explained. She ran a hand through her hair and yawned.

Michael seemed much more interested in the fact that Amy had been released than that they were short a waitress. He shrugged off Liz's complaints and glanced down at the grill.

Liz turned and walked out of the kitchen, leaving Michael alone. He sorted through the orders she'd left behind, found a few that called for hamburgers, and began dumping the meat onto the grill. The air quickly filled with the smell of cooking grease.

The back door opened and a man stepped in from the alley. He glanced around the kitchen quickly, and upon seeing that Michael was the only one there, stepped forward and eyed the other man suspiciously.

Michael, instincts instantly flaring into protective mode, said, "The kitchen is off limits to customers. But the diner is through that door…" He pointed with his spatula.

The other man didn't move. Instead, he said, "I'm not a customer. My name is Nick Latcher, I'm a reporter. And you must be Michael Guerin."

A thousand red flags and alarm bells went off in Michael's head. Forcing himself to remain calm, he said, "What can I do for you?"

Nick considered Michael carefully. He really didn't look like a threat to public safety, and after everything Nick had discovered, he wasn't entirely sure that the FBI _wasn't_ the enemy here. Still, Justin Drake was dead, and although he was fairly certain he knew who had killed him, he still didn't know why.

Which was where Michael came in.

"A friend of mine disappeared, and I spent some time trying to find him," Nick said at last. "Justin Drake? Perhaps you remember him?"

"Ms. DeLuca's doctor," Michael replied before he could stop himself. "What about him? He left, didn't he?"

"Well, that's one explanation," Nick answered. "But I've done some digging, and I've come up with something else. Something that connects you to Justin… and puts you in danger."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Michael stonewalled, refusing to give any indication that he was curious about what this reporter had discovered. "I have to get back to work."

Nick reached into his pocket and fished out his wallet. Opening it, he withdrew his card and stared at it thoughtfully. Then he handed it to Michael. "If you change your mind, give me a call." And he was gone, slipping out the backdoor as silently as he had come.

Michael stared at the closing door, then down at the card in his hand. Rubbing the back of his head absently, he placed the card in his pocket and turned his attention back to the grill. This had to be a trap, and he'd tell Max about it later. But right now, it was best to keep his head down, and not take the bait. Nick couldn't possibly have any information that Michael didn't already have.

Right?

* * *

Next Chapter: Too Much, Too Close 

Due: Sun 5/ 13


	73. Too Much, Too Close

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Hm... don't really have anything to say here. So, on with the chapter!

* * *

Chapter Seventy-Two: Too Much, Too Close

"It's a trap," Max said instantly. He and Michael were sitting in his room, discussing Michael's run-in with the AP reporter. Michael nodded absent and fingered the business card Nick had given him, staring at the name and number printed on the pale surface.

"He knows something," Michael said at last. "It might be a trap, but I really think he knows something about what is going on…"

"Yeah, well, so do we," Max replied pointedly. "We know the FBI is out to get us, and my bet is that this guy is just another plant. Someone to replace Ms. Topolski." He shook his head and stared blankly off into space, thinking. More and more, he was suspicious of everyone around them. Who else was a plant, a spy? Who else was waiting to catch them when they were being careless? Was there anyone they would ever be able to trust?

"If he was, why would he come and tell me that he was investigating all this?" Michael countered. Max raised a disbelieving eyebrow, and Michael continued hurriedly, "I'm not saying he's trustworthy. I'm just not sure he's FBI either."

"So maybe he's an alien," Max shot back.

Michael rolled his eyes and pocketed Nick's business card. "I looked online. He checks out, he really is a reporter. From the East Coast."

"Well, of course he checks out," Max retorted. "If he's FBI, he's going to make sure his cover story is fool proof." He paused, contemplating this new development, then asked, "What did he say his connection was to Ms. DeLuca's doctor?"

"He said that he and Dr. Drake were friends," Michael replied.

"That's it?" Max asked, frowning. "The rumors around town are that Drake skipped out on his wife. That makes him a jerk, but it doesn't really seem like it would be enough to make a reporter drop everything and fly across the country to investigate his disappearance."

"Unless he knows something that we don't know," Michael argued.

"Yes, but how would he know anything at all? He's on the other side of the country," Max mused thoughtfully, trying to put the pieces of the puzzle into place. Finally, he looked up at Michael and said firmly, "There's too many unknowns. We can't take the risk. Just forget about him. Act normal."

"Max, you have a glowing orb and an extraterrestrial-made button in a box under your bed," Michael deadpanned. "I don't know how much longer we can keep acting normal."

"Look, I don't like the idea of doing nothing while our enemies might know exactly where we are, but there's nothing else we can do. It's just too risky," Max muttered. "No one has attacked us in ten years, I think we should just…"

"Just what?" Michael interrupted, lowering his voice in anger. "Hope and pray that we stay safe?"

"You're the one who just agreed that this reporter isn't trustworthy," Max snapped, frustrated at Michael's continual changing of opinion. "You don't want to trust him, but you don't want me to dismiss his claims. What do you want me to do?"

"Have the right answer?" Michael offered sarcastically.

Max glared at his best friend for a moment, then said almost glumly, "Why do people keep expecting me to know what to do?" Michael didn't answer, and Max finally asked, "So we're agreed? Keep a low profile? Stay away from this guy?"

Michael nodded reluctantly.

* * *

The knock at the door caused Maria to look up in surprise. She and her mother had been sitting in the living room, watching some old movie on the television. She hadn't really been paying attention to it, and wasn't entirely sure what exactly the plot was, so the disturbance of the knock didn't bother her that much. Getting up, she left her mother and the television and walked to the door. 

Pulling it open, she was surprised to see a stranger standing in front of her. A few people had come by earlier to see Amy and tell her how happy they were that she was home and expected to make a full recovery. Assuming that this was just another person her mother knew that she'd never met, she opened the door a little wider.

"Are you here to see my Mom?" she asked with a bright smile.

"Yes, I am," the man replied. "But I'm also here to see you." He extended his hand, matching her own smile, and introduced himself, "I'm a reporter. You can call me Nick."

"A reporter?" Maria asked, confusion marring her features. Instantly, she worried about Michael, Max, Isabel, and Tess. Maintaining a calm expression, she questioned, "Why are you here?"

"I work in Santa Fe. The man who was driving the truck that hit your mother is up there, serving time…" he answered smoothly. He waited until Maria had nodded, showing that she was following his explanation, and then he continued, "I covered the trial. Now, my readers want to know how you mother is doing and how she feels about the truck driver's sentence. You know… the personal touch."

"Oh…" Maria glanced back at her mother. "She just got home from the hospital today, so I don't know if she is up to visitors…" She trailed off, wondering what her mother would want to do.

"That's reasonable," Nick said with an understanding nod. "I can come back later." He gave Maria a calculating look, then asked, "What if I ask you some questions now? Would you be up to that?"

"Um… I guess." The blonde teenager fidgeted slightly, leaning against the doorpost and rising one eyebrow in a query. "What sort of things did you want to know?"

"Well… we understand that your mother is a single parent, and you're an only child, so that must have put a lot of strain on you," Nick said sympathetically. "How did you manage to deal with all of it?"

"My friends were amazing," Maria replied with a nonchalant shrug. "And my… boyfriend, Michael…" She stopped suddenly, wondering what Michael would say if he knew that she'd just given his name to a reporter. She grimaced inwardly, already picturing the outrage on his face when he discovered that he was going to be in the paper… and as her boyfriend.

She didn't have alien instincts the way the four Czechoslovakians did. She couldn't sense when something was off, the way Isabel had done with Deputy Hannigan, or foresee danger like Michael did when they were entering Atherton's home. But she had good instincts, for a human, and something was abruptly cautioning her to be careful.

"Ah… a boyfriend. Our readers go for young love. Care to tell me anything about him?" Nick asked.

Maria narrowed her eyes. "I thought it was the female reporters who generally wrote the cotton-candy fluff stories," she asked, unable to keep the suspicion out of her voice.

Nick held up his hands in submissive surrender. "Hey, if you want privacy, I get that. So, do you mind if I ask you about your mother's care in the hospital? Was it satisfactory? Did you like her doctor?"

Maria shrugged. "He was fine, I guess," she replied. "He left part way through, and so my Mom had a new doctor. That was a little annoying, but they still took care of her."

"He just left? That's odd? Did he give a reason?"

Maria stared hard at the reporter, watching the emotions flickering through his eyes. There was something in his face, something he was attempting to conceal from her. She wasn't quite sure what it was, or what exactly was going on, but she was too frightened to ignore it.

"No," she said coolly. "I have to go back inside, my mom and I are watching a movie. I'll talk to you later." Without another word, she closed the door in his face, her heart beating frantically, pounding in her chest.

"Maria? Everything alright?" Amy's voice drifted towards her.

"Everything's fine, Mom. I'll be there is a minute," Maria called back. She tried to take a few deep breaths, but could barely manage to force oxygen into her tightened lungs. Slowly, the fear began to fade, and she wondered if she wasn't just being paranoid.

Still…

Without really thinking, she walked over to the phone and dialed a number. A few rings later, a voice answered.

"Hello?"

"Michael? Do you have a minute? Something just happened…"

* * *

_It's been a while since I've written in my journal. After the whole problem with its disappearance, I guess I thought it would be a bad idea to put any of this down on paper. But at the same time, I still need a place to organize my thoughts, and lately things have been so… _

Liz frowned at the ringing phone, pulling her attention away from her journal. She put her pencil down and picked up the phone, glancing at the number. "Hey," she answered cheerfully.

"Hey, chica. I think I did something stupid," Maria said, worry evident in her shaking voice.

"What's wrong?" Liz asked instantly. 'Did something happen?"

"This guy came to talk to me today. He said he was a reporter covering the trial of the truck driver who caused my mom's accident. He wanted to ask me some questions, but after a while I just got paranoid and made him leave…"

"Paranoid about what?" Liz asked, curiously. She pushed her journal aside, focusing her full attention on the phone conversation. "And what exactly did you tell him?"

"That's not the problem," Maria muttered. There was a pause, then she explained, "I called Michael after the reporter left and told him what had happened. Turns out, the reporter had contacted Michael also. He's not covering my mom at all. He's investigating Dr. Drake's disappearance, and he somehow knows that Michael is involved. Michael thinks he might know about the Czechoslovakians, or at least suspect."

"But you didn't tell him anything, right?" Liz pressed, confused. She understood Maria's fears, but as long as she hadn't told the reporter anything, then she hadn't done anything stupid.

"The reporter wanted to talk to Michael. That's why he went to find him," Maria explained. She let out a slow breath, and continued, "Max and Michael talked about it, and decided just to act normal. Stay away from him."

"Well, that makes sense. I mean, that is part of the hiding-in-plain-sight plan," Liz reasoned.

"Yes, and Michael was going to follow it until I called him and told him what had happened. He got upset that the reporter had bothered my mother and I and now…" She let the sentence trail off, but Liz knew exactly what she was implying.

"You think Michael went to talk to him?"

"Yes."

* * *

"Stay away from Amy and Maria DeLuca." 

Nick raised an eyebrow at the threatening tone and said dryly, "When you called and told me that you'd changed your mind and wanted to meet with me, I assumed it was to talk about what I knew. I wouldn't have come if I had known you were just going to threaten me."

Michael glowered and spat, "Do you think that's an idle threat?"

"Do you really think you scare me?" Nick shot back. Michael was just a kid, and he'd been an investigative reporter long enough to know how to protect himself from less scrupulous characters.

He crossed his arms over his chest and glanced around. They had agreed to meet by an old abandoned warehouse near the outskirts of the city. It was Michael's idea, but the location was secure enough to assure him that they wouldn't be overheard.

Besides, it was after ten at night. No one would be out and about at this hour, at least not in this neighborhood.

Michael sighed. Nick didn't seem to be someone who was easily intimidated. "Fine," he said coldly. "So what exactly do you want?"

"Justin Drake and I were friends, Mr. Guerin," Nick replied softly. "And his wife, Cynthia, is a friend as well. I want the truth, I want to know what happened to Justin. I think his wife deserves to know that at least."

"And how exactly do you think I can help you with that?" Michael asked cautiously, keeping his voice level.

Nick considered his options carefully. He didn't want to show all his cards, it would leave him nothing to bargain with. But at the same time, he knew Michael wouldn't trust him if he kept too many secrets. Finally, he said, "When Amy DeLuca was first admitted to the hospital, Justin called me and asked me to look into who you were. He didn't know much of anything, but he knew that the FBI was involved somehow. I guess they had asked him questions."

Michael considered this quietly. It made sense, Nasedo had warned them that Pierce was closer than any of them realized, and with Ms. Topolski still fishing for answers at that point as well…

"Fine," he said at last. "So what did you find about me?"

"I discovered that you were found wandering around alone in the desert at the age of six," Nick replied. "I discovered that the FBI believed something odd had gone on that day that there was a shooting at your local diner… and that you were involved. And the unit that was sent here, it's black ops. Those agents report to no one, and do whatever the hell they want."

Michael remained silent for a moment, thinking. Then he asked, "And you actually believed all of that?"

"I did a little more digging, and I discovered that the FBI was interested in Max and Isabel Evans and Tess Harding as well as you and Liz Parker," Nick said, ignoring Michael's question. "I was pretty sure that they had tapped Justin's lines, so I called him and warned him off the case. He got the message, and I thought that would be enough to save him." He paused somberly, his dark eyes filling with regret. "It wasn't."

"What do you want from us?" Michael asked at last.

"Well, I'd like to know what the hell is going on. But I'm going to guess that you're not going to tell me that one, are you?" Nick answered sarcastically, shaking his head.

"None of this is our fault," Michael said without thinking. Nick raised an eyebrow, and Michael sighed inwardly, wishing he hadn't just inadvertently admitted that some of what Nick said was actually true. He looked away, unsure of what to do now.

"And now that Ms. Topolski is out of the picture…"

Michael turned and looked sharply at Nick, and the reporter flashed a cold smile.

"I'm an investigative journalist, Mr. Guerin, I know how to find information." He shook his head and continued, "Now that Topolski is gone, this new guy… Pierce… is in town. I don't know how he's here, but I know he's been keeping an eye on all of you."

"In Roswell?" Michael asked, throwing aside all pretense. "Actually here? Like Ms. Topolski was?"

"Yes," Nick said. "Now, I don't think he actually killed Justin. But I'm certain that Justin's dead, and that Pierce and the FBI are responsible for making his body… vanish. So that begs the question, if Pierce didn't kill Justin, who did?"

"What makes you think Pierce isn't responsible?" Michael demanded, thinking back to Drake's death. Tess had found him, in his office, dead, and with a silver handprint on his chest. Which meant that he was killed by a shape-shifter, probably the same one who had killed Hank and Deputy Hannigan. Had he known that Drake was investigating the aliens? Probably.

Michael mused on the irony of that. Nick had been so worried about the FBI and the danger they might pose to hid friend, but in the end, the real danger came from someone completely different.

"I have my ways," Nick replied cryptically, refusing to give up all his information. He gave Michael a scrutinizing look, and asked, "So tell me, how did Justin die?"

"How would I know?" Michael snapped, temper flaring at the accusation. "We're not responsible for any deaths."

"Not responsible?" Nick laughed at that. "Ms. Topolski's probably dead…"

"She got herself involved in this mess. It was her decision," Michael hissed, his face flushing with anger.

"Your foster father… what was his name? Hank?"

"He died from an allergic reaction to morphine or something," Michael protested, knowing that it wasn't entirely true, but not willing to admit it.

Nick tilted his head to the side, staring at Michael. "If you really want to believe that…" He smirked icily. "And your friend, Tess Harding. What about her parents? The FBI are interested in Andrew and Jessica Harding's deaths, so I am going to guess that that was more than just an accident."

"That was a long time ago," Michael muttered.

"That's a lot of deaths, Michael," Nick continued as though he had not even heard Michael's defense. "And Justin? What about him? Are you not responsible for that either?"

"We're done here," Michael growled, moving to step past Nick. But the reporter extended an arm, stopping him, and Michael had to struggle to maintain a control on his gifts. He wanted nothing more than to throw Nick as far away from him as he could.

"Hey, maybe you don't care about any of those people," Nick accused. "But what makes you think the next death won't be someone you do care about?" Eyes glittering with cold fury, the reporter said in a low voice, "Like Maria or Amy DeLuca."

Michael reached out and slammed Nick against the wall, pressing his hands into the older man's shoulders. "You stay away from them," he snarled.

Nick shoved Michael back and shook himself free of the grip. "I don't think you killed any of those people, Michael, but I do think you know what happened to them," he said softly. "And those of us who do care about Justin, we at least deserve to know what happened to him. If you walk away now…"

"I don't have anything to tell you," Michael said stiffly. He walked away, leaving Nick to stare after him in dismay. Inside, his stomach was churning with bubbling guilt; after all, wasn't everything Nick said true? All those deaths… they'd been because of him, because of the aliens. Maybe Michael hadn't physically killed any of them, but his very presence had been the driving force behind their deaths.

And what if Nick was right? What if the next death… what if it was Maria?

* * *

"What part of stay away from the reporter didn't you understand?" Max asked, his voice low and shaking with fury as he stormed into Michael's apartment. 

Michael frowned, narrowing his eyes. "He spoke to Maria. He wanted to talk to Amy. We can ignore him all we want, but he's not going to ignore us."

"That's no reason to go looking for him!" Max retorted, shaking his head in disbelief.

"I was trying to protect Maria!" Michael shot back.

"By talking to our enemy?" Max asked sarcastically. "Who knows how much damage a single reporter can do? He could be more dangerous than the entire FBI!"

Michael sat down on the sofa and sighed slowly. "How did you even know that I went to talk to him?" he said at last, glancing at the clock. It was almost eleven at night, but he'd only returned from the warehouse about half and hour ago.

"Liz told me," Max replied. "Apparently Maria called her, concerned that you were walking into a trap." He looked away, barely managing to restrain himself from punching Michael. His reckless behavior was going to get them all killed. First driving to Marathon, then wandering around in the woods during the camping trip, now this…

Michael, as though reading Max's mind, said in a quiet voice, "Hey, I'm not the one who healed anyone in a full diner. You started all this."

Max opened his mouth to deny the accusation, then shut it and nodded. "You're right," he said at last. "I did. That part of this is my fault, and I'll take the blame for it. But I'm tired of everyone using that as an excuse for their own stupidity. Just because I did something once isn't a reason for you to continually risk out safety."

Michael gave a bitter laugh. "This was about protecting us, Max. That's why I went. It's not like I just decided to risk everything because it sounded _fun_."

"We agreed that we wouldn't…"

"No, Max," Michael interrupted, glaring at his friend. "We didn't agree on anything. _You_ dictated, and I barely got a say in the matter." He stood up, crossing to the door and opening it. "You should leave."

Max swallowed back his rage at Michael's cold attitude and walked to the door. As he stepped out of the apartment and into the hallway, he turned and said firmly, "This isn't over yet, Michael."

Michael shrugged and closed the door, and Max walked away, still fuming.

* * *

Max slammed the car door shut and glanced at the Crashdown, still livid about Michael's blatant disregard for their safety. Through the glass windows, he could see Liz moving about, cleaning the last of the tables. It was late at night, and his parents would start to wonder where he was soon, but he needed to cool off before going back to his house. 

He was about to knock on the diner door when the sound of footsteps caught his attention, and he turned to see Brody hurrying along the street, holding a bundle of something in his arms.

"Brody?" Max greeted, surprised.

Brody stopped in his tracks, wide eyes filling with recognition. "Max," he said, offering a smile. He glanced down at what he was carrying and sighed. "I was just on my way back from the hospital, and my car broke down… I saw the lights on here," he gestured to the Crashdown, "and was going to ask to borrow their phone…"

"The hospital? Is everything okay?" Max questioned in concern.

Brody shifted the bundle in his arms, and a small head of hair came into view. The little girl opened her eyes wearily and gave her father a light smile before shifting herself into a more comfortable position and leaning her head against his shoulder.

"Yes, everything's fine," Brody replied. "I was just taking my daughter, Sydney, for a check up."

Max frowned at the little girl. A check up in the middle of the night? It was eleven o'clock, nobody went in for check-ups that late. However, he didn't press Brody on the matter, instead he just nodded slowly.

"What are you doing here?" Brody questioned, abruptly realizing how odd it was for Max to be here this late at night as well.

"Oh… Liz works at the Crashdown," Max explained, pointing towards Liz through the windows.

Brody smiled delightedly. "Your girlfriend?" he pressed, eyeing Liz thoughtfully. "She looks like a sweet girl."

"She is," Max agreed. "Why don't you two come inside? Can you call someone to pick you up? Then you can take the car to the garage tomorrow," he suggested.

Brody nodded gratefully. "Thanks, Max," he said.

Max rapped his knuckles on the door, and a moment later Liz appeared, unlocking the latch, and allowing them access to the diner. She raised an eyebrow at Max when she realized he wasn't alone, but Max just gave her a reassuring smile, silently telling her that everything was fine, and no one was in any trouble.

"This is Brody Davis," Max introduced. "His car broke down, and he didn't have a cell phone, so he was wondering if he could use the diner's phone…"

"Oh, of course," Liz said. "It's in the back, Mr. Davis, through that door there." She pointed at the far door, and she and Max watched as Brody walked away, still tightly clutching Sydeny. Then she turned to Max and asked in a soft whisper, "That's your boss?"

"And his daughter," Max replied under his breath. "He was taking her back from the hospital…" He paused, contemplating what he knew about Sydeny. Brody didn't talk about her that much, but he could tell that something was very wrong with the little girl. He wondered what it was.

"She's sick," Liz said, unknowingly echoing Max's thoughts. "I wonder what's wrong with here, and why they were at the hospital."

"Yeah…"

* * *

Next Chapter: Payback 

Due: Wed 5/15


	74. The Promise

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: So, this chapter is sort of a sidebar type chapter. None of the pod squad or the I-know-an-alien club members are in it. And it is kind of short. But it is important to the plot, nonetheless.

* * *

Chapter Seventy-Three: The Promise

"Did you really think he'd give you any of the answers you're looking for?"

Nick spun around at the sound of the cold voice drifting to him through the chilly morning air. He had been standing at the corner of a street across from Roswell High School, watching the students arrive. Although he'd gotten little out of his previous night's conversation with Michael Guerin, he wasn't ready to give up quite yet. He still wanted answer, and one way or another, he was going to get them.

He had assumed that he was alone until the cold voice interrupted his thoughts, and he turned, frowning slightly. Behind him, a man with dark hair and calculating brown eyes leaned against the street sign post and gazed at him.

"Who are you?" Nick asked, his eyes traveling down to the uniform the stranger was wearing. "You work for the Sheriff?"

The man laughed softly and murmured, "I work for myself, Mr. Latcher. And I do believe you know who I am. Or, at least, you've heard of me…" He stepped forward and extended a hand. "Donald Pierce."

Nick started, stepping away from the other man. "So my sources were correct," he muttered, "you are in town."

"Indeed," Pierce agreed. "And I have been for a while." Nick hadn't shaken his hand, so he dropped it and added, "And your sources are the reason I would like to speak to you."

"Oh?" Nick asked. He didn't completely trust the FBI agent, and knew that his life could be in quite a lot of danger is he allowed this man to trap him in his sticky web. However, they were in broad daylight near a crowded school parking lot, and even Pierce wouldn't dare to kill him right here. He was safe… for now.

"I'd like to know exactly how you know the things you know," Pierce explained. "And, perhaps if I like your sources, we can work together."

"And what do I get out of the bargain?" Nick spat, narrowing his eyes in anger. "You're responsible for Justin Drake's death! Why would I work with you?"

Pierce smiled. "Oh, but you know I didn't kill your friend. I admit I am the one who arranged for him to… disappear… but he was already dead at that point." He turned and glanced over at the school, watching the students milling around in the parking lot before class. "And you think somehow that Michael Guerin is responsible, don't you?"

"I don't think Michael killed him, if that's what you're asking," Nick replied carefully. Although he knew a lot, he didn't know enough, and he had to be cautious. He was already in over his head, and only his quick thinking and ability to bluff had kept him afloat this long. He couldn't afford a mistake.

"Ah, but you think that Mr. Guerin knows more than he is saying…?" Pierce pressed, lips set into a thin smirk. He didn't wait for Nick to answer, however, and continued smoothly, "I agree with you on that one. But I would like to know just exactly what happened, and I am having some trouble figuring it out. As I am sure you discovered last night, Mr. Guerin is less than cooperative at answering questions."

Nick wondered briefly how Pierce knew about his meeting with Michael last night. He was sure they hadn't been followed, and he was almost positive that Michael and Pierce were on opposite sides of this fight, so Michael wouldn't have told Pierce anything… But then he simply reminded himself that this was the FBI; they just know things.

"What do you want?" Nick asked.

"Your help," Pierce said nonchalantly.

"And you want my help?" Nick almost laughed. "As I asked before, what would I get out of it?"

"Well, I can't tell you who killed Drake or how he died, but…" He turned his gaze back to Nick, fixing him with a piercing stare, "I do have the body."

"You… how?" Nick stuttered, surprised.

Pierce just smiled. "And I am sure that Cynthia Drake and her daughters would like to be able to bury him, don't you think?" He crossed his arms over his chest. "You give me what I want, and I'll give you the chance to have a proper funeral for your friend."

As Nick considered this, neither he nor Pierce noticed the figure that slipped stealthily away through the shadows, leaving it's hiding place behind the nearest building.

* * *

The late afternoon sun cast a faint yellow glow through the windows of the motel room. Nick sat on the bed, a phone in his hand, staring blankly at the wall. On the dresser by the door was a number, scrawled on a piece of paper, that Pierce had given him. 

If he decided to take the deal, all he had to do was call…

He shook his head. He honestly had no idea what to do. He knew that Pierce was not to be trusted, that he was most likely the villain is this particular horror story he was caught in, but he also needed to give Cynthia the closure she deserved.

He got up, placing the phone gently on the bed, and walked over to the open laptop on the table. Opening his mail, he hunted for an email address, and began to compose a letter.

"Dear Cynthia," he muttered as he typed, his fingers flying across the keyboard. "You're all in danger and you need to leave Roswell now." It was abrupt and he suppose he could have been more considerate in the email, but he knew that she was in danger, and he needed her to get out while she still could. "I've found proof that Justin was murdered. I'm getting deeper into this, and it's going to be dangerous for me. If I make it out safely, I'll contact you. Otherwise…" He stopped typing. What else should he say?

He looked back at the phone. He was going to do this, he was going to take Pierce's offer. He was going to get involved in this, go all the way… And he was fairly certain he was walking right into danger.

He continued typing. Pierce was Special Unit, and nobody liked secret FBI agents. Which meant that, if the wrong information reached the wrong hands, Pierce could be in trouble. If even one single rumor was leaked…

Nick stared at what he had written. The name and number of a reporter, a friend of his. Everything he knew about Pierce and Topolski. Details about the FBI being in Roswell.

It was his collateral.

"Cynnie," he continued typing, talking to himself as he did, "I'll try to reach you within the month. If I don't, assume that I'm dead. Call the number I've given you, and tell the reporter to print this information about Pierce." As long as he could hold this over Pierce's head, the FBI wouldn't make him disappear like they had with Justin. He chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully, then ended, "Stay safe."

He reread the email once, then pressed the _send_ button. Then he stood up and walked over to the phone, preparing to make the phone call.

The sound of a click caught his attention, and he turned to stare in surprise as the door to his motel room… unlocked itself?

Sure enough, a moment later, the previously shut and locked door swung open, and a man walked into the room.

Nick instantly grabbed the flashlight that he always kept with him when he traveled. It wasn't much of a weapon, but it was all he had at the moment.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

The man smiled. "Well, lately I've been going by the name of Sean. But you can call me Nasedo." He stepped further into the room. "I overheard your conversation with Agent Pierce this morning. You seem to know too much, and to this end, you have become a problem for myself, and for the safety of the Royal Four."

"The what?" Nick demanded, brandishing the flashlight.

"However," Nasedo continued, ignoring the question, "It is my job to eliminate the problems." He raised a hand, and for a moment, his fingertips glowed a bright whitish blue.

* * *

Pierce glanced up as the sharp ring of a phone cut through the stillness of his office. He reached out and picked up his cell phone, glancing at the number. With a pleased smile, he answered and said casually, "I trust you've made a decision, Mr. Latcher." 

"Unfortunately, Mr. Latcher will be unable to uphold his end of the bargain," an icy voice answered.

Pierce clutched the phone tightly. "Who is this?"

"Don't you remember me?" the voice mocked. "You spent quite a bit of time enjoying yourself as you dissected me like a lab rat in your white room."

Pierce forced himself to stay calm. He had been hunting for this escaped alien with every bit of manpower he had, and yet somehow, the enemy had continually alluded him. And now he had the gall to call and mock him?

"What did you do to Nick Latcher?" Pierce asked.

"I took care of a threat," the voice answered unemotionally. "Like I said, he won't be joining you and time soon."

"What do you want?" Pierce questioned, trying to think logically. He could put a trace on this call, but the alien would be too smart to call from his own phone. Maybe this was a payphone or a stolen cell phone or something…

"I know where you are, Agent Pierce. I know who you are currently pretending to be. You may have fooled everyone else, but I know the truth… You took years of my life, torturing me in that room. And for what? Your own inhuman pleasure? But rest assured, next time we meet, you'll be the one to suffer."

"Is that a threat?" Pierce snarled. He would not be beaten by this… _thing_.

"It's a promise," the voice replied. Then the line went dead.

* * *

Next Chapter: Deliberate Coincidences 

Due: Sun 5/20


	75. Deliberate Coincidences

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: _Italics_ are dreams. Just a reminder about the dream Tess had about Kyle being upset because she ate all the hamburger; Isabel has seen the dream (via dream-walking), Nasedo has seen the dream (also through his own version of dream-walking), and Kyle remembers that particular argument, although he doesn't know why.

* * *

Chapter Seventy-Four: Deliberate Coincidences

"Another homicide?" Jim asked under his breath, switching his cell phone from one hand to the other and glancing back at Amy and Maria DeLuca. He had stopped by to see how Amy was doing, and they had been talking for a while. Maria had come home from school and somewhat reluctantly joined them. But then he'd gotten a call from his deputy announcing that they'd found the body of a AP reporter in a motel room.

"Where not sure," Deputy Fisher replied, his voice competing with the static on the line. "There's no apparent cause of death, so unless we do an autopsy…"

"What's the deceased's name?" Jim questioned, wondering if it was anyone he knew. They didn't have many reporters down here, especially not ones who worked for the Associated Press.

"Nick Latcher, I believe," Deputy Fisher replied. "You want me to handle the case? There isn't a reason for you to come in yet. It could very well be natural cause of death, I just wanted to give you the head's up since we don't know."

"Nick Latcher," Jim repeated thoughtfully. He didn't know the name. Maybe the reporter wasn't from around Roswell?

He missed the look that passed through Maria's eyes at the sound of the name, missed the telltale scrunching of her eyebrows as she put the pieces together and figured out who and what he was talking about.

"You take care of it for now," Jim said at last. "But I want a full report this evening. Let me know if you find anything to suggest foul play." He hung up the phone and turned back to Amy. "I'm sorry. It seems like the job follows me everywhere I go."

"That's alright," Amy answered easily. "Is it important? You can leave if you're needed on a case. You don't have to stay with me."

Jim shook his head. "One of my deputies is handling it. He'll let me know if he needs me." He took a seat next to Amy and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. He wasn't really good at this sort of boyfriend thing, but he knew he had to compete with Sean now, and he wasn't about to let the other man win.

Maria got up and said abruptly, "I'll be right back." Both Amy and Jim gave her confused looks, but she ignored them and hurried towards the stairs. Once she was in the safety of her own room, she closed the door firmly and leaned against the wall, worried.

Nick Latcher was dead.

She reached for her phone. She needed to call someone, because there was no possible way that this was just a coincidence.

But who to call?

She was loathe to call Michael, worried about how impulsively he might react to this news. Liz had already told her what had happened the last time she told Michael anything about the reporter, and about the ensuing fight between Max and Michael. A repeat of that would not be good. But if she called Max or Isabel, it would imply to Michael that she didn't trust him, and she didn't want to hurt him like that either. Tess was obviously out of the question, she avoided that petite alien as much as possible. That left Liz or Alex…

Liz wanted a life separate from this alien drama. She wanted a chance to be the girlfriend of Max Evans, normal high school student; instead she was continually forced into being the girlfriend and accomplice of Max Evans, alien. But she was Maria's best friend, and she was usually level headed. She'd know what to do.

Or, at the very least, she would tell Max, and then he could take care of it.

She dialed the number, listening to the rings until Liz picked up.

"Hey, Maria."

"Liz… something's happened."

* * *

"What are you doing?"

Tess turned around in surprise at the accusatory tone. Max was standing behind her, arms crossed over his chest, glaring at her. They were standing in the Crashdown, sunlight streaming through the glass windows. The diner was filled with students who had nothing better to do after school than sit around and talk. Tess and Chris had decided to attempt a mini-date that afternoon. Ever since Homecoming, she had wanted to pursue a relationship with Chris, but things kept getting in the way.

"What do you mean?" Tess asked, confused. She glanced around, her eyes finding Isabel sitting in one of the back booths. Liz wasn't working today, so she assumed that Max must have come with his sister.

"With him," Max explained, rolling his eyes and gesturing towards Chris, who was sitting at a table near the front.

Tess opened her mouth, then closed it. Normally, she would have allowed her temper to flare up at the fact that Max was trying to interfere in her social life, but she was to bewildered by his sudden hostility towards Chris. He didn't even know the guy.

"It's called a date," Tess deadpanned, shaking her head.

"Is he trustworthy?" Max asked skeptically, glancing back at Chris.

Tess' jaw dropped. She took a moment to collect her thoughts, then lowered her voice and said, "See, ordinarily I would be livid that you actually asked me that. That you think I would spill any secrets to him. That you think I can't keep my mouth shut or my gifts under control. But right now, I'm actually a little more concerned about what happened that would make you act like this."

"Like what?" Max questioned.

Tess tilted her head to the side and replied waspishly, "Like a hypocritical, self-centered jerk."

Max narrowed his eyes at her angrily, but remained silent for a moment, thinking. Liz had called him early that afternoon to tell him about the conversation Maria overheard. Nick Latcher was dead, and who knew why. It had to be alien related, though. There was no way he had just spontaneously died right then.

So who had killed him? The shape-shifter? The FBI? Someone else?

Nasedo was not supposed to be a threat to them, but all this killing… If he really was behind it… Max sighed and rubbed his eyes wearily. He'd yelled at Michael and now Michael wasn't speaking to him. He was right, what Michael had done was stupid and reckless, but he was just trying to protect the group and Max couldn't fault him for that. Or, at least, he shouldn't fault him for it…

Chris wasn't even a threat to any of them, and Tess had always managed to keep their secret from her friends so there was no reason to expect she wouldn't be able to do so with her new boyfriend as well.

So what was he so upset about?

Tess bit her bottom lip as she stared at Max. His lack of response to her jibe was starting to unnerve her. He was supposed to be upset that she had called him a hypocritical, self-centered jerk. He was supposed to snap back at her, and they were supposed to get into a fight. That's how it always worked in the past.

Although generally those arguments were in private, and not in the middle of a crowded diner.

But Max was obviously worried about something, and she couldn't help but worry also.

"Max?" Tess asked, attempting to sound concerned and sympathetic instead of merely annoyed. She only partially managed it, and her temper still showed in her eyes.

Max sighed. With startling clarity, he knew what was wrong. Somehow, for some reason he couldn't quite identify, he knew that he was supposed to have the answers. He was supposed to make the difficult decisions, he was supposed to protect the group. That was his job, his responsibility. He didn't know how he knew that, but he could feel it, strong and powerful. It was intrinsically his, the duty to keep everyone safe.

And he had no idea how he was supposed to do it.

"I'm sorry. Of course, I have no problem with Chris. I'm sure he's a great guy," Max muttered.

Tess was speechless.

"Max?" she repeated, and this time with more urgency. "What wrong?"

"I'll call you tonight," Max muttered under his breath. "I need to talk to you. Something's happened." He turned and walked away, wondering if he should talk to Michael as well. Maybe he'd wait and see if Michael calmed down on his own. On the other hand, if Michael didn't yet know that Nick was dead, Max should tell him…

Lost in his thoughts, he went to sit next to Isabel, and didn't see the puzzled and worried expression on Tess' face as she watched him leave.

* * *

"Willis," Agent Pierce said, walking into the room where the other agent was sitting, working on some paperwork.

"Yes, sir?" Agent Willis said, standing up and facing his superior.

"We need to move up our time schedule. Things have changed, and one of our enemies is closer than I originally realized."

* * *

Isabel knocked on the door of Tess' room and stepped inside without waiting for a response. Tess looked up, surprised by the intrusion, and worry instantly creased the lines of her face. After Max's strange behavior this afternoon and his insistence that he speak to her later that evening, she was a little on edge. And now Isabel randomly showing up? Granted, the two were theoretically friends now, but still…

"What's up?" Tess asked guardedly.

Isabel took a seat on the edge of Tess' bed and said, "I wanted to talk to you about something." As Tess' worried look deepened, she rushed to reassure the girl, "We're not in danger or anything like that. I just… I actually had a question for you."

"Oh… okay," Tess answered, now more confused than ever. She felt, once again, wrong-footed by the Evans siblings' strange behavior today, and she didn't like it.

"It's about this dream you had," Isabel started, deciding she should just get to the point. Tess would only get annoyed if she tried to take the circuitous route in this conversation, and she didn't really want to give Tess more of a reason to be upset with her. She was probably already going to be angry enough; she didn't like it when Isabel dream-walked her.

Sure enough, Tess narrowed her eyes and said, "Stop dream-walking me."

"I haven't," Isabel said. "Not in a little while. And I really wouldn't have, either, except that Kyle was having this weird dream and I…" She realized too late that it was the wrong thing to say; Tess also didn't like it when she dream-walked either of the Valentis.

"Stay out of Kyle's dreams," Tess ordered coolly.

"Look, can you just let me ask my question? You can yell at me all you want later, but I just… I need to ask this," Isabel begged in frustration. If Tess really wanted to, she could make this conversation unpleasant and difficult, and Isabel wanted to avoid that as much as possible.

"Fine," Tess snapped, not in the least mollified.

"You were in your dream, the one time I dream-walked you. I remember, because you asked me if I had sensed anyone else in your dream. You thought someone else was watching, which meant you were there too. And then later, you told us that the shape-shifter had visited you in your dream."

Tess frowned at Isabel. "So?" she asked. She didn't understand why Isabel seemed so confused about this. She also didn't want to talk about the dream, because she knew perfectly well which one Isabel was referring to, and she wanted to forget about it.

She wanted to pretend that memory never happened.

"So you don't have the gift of dream-walking. And even if you did, the shape-shifter said that we can't dream-walk ourselves or we get sucked into our dreams. So… I understand how you can remember your dreams. I don't understand how you can actually be in them," Isabel said at last.

Tess blinked. She hadn't been expecting that. "It isn't dream-walking," she said at last. "And… technically that wasn't a dream. It was a memory. I was dreaming about it because I was forcing myself to remember it… in my sleep…" She trailed off, unsure exactly how to explain it. "Dreams are subconscious. Memories are conscious. I…" She shook her head. "It's just different. But you should try it some time, if you ever want to stand outside a memory and look at what's happening around you."

"You think I can do that?" Isabel asked curiously.

Tess nodded. "Sure. I know Max has done it before, and Michael maybe…" It had been a while, several years, in fact, since she'd really talked to the others about their developing gifts. But, back in middle school, Max had cone to her once to say that he'd suddenly found himself reliving a memory while he was sleeping. She'd tried it out herself the next night, and was interested to find that she was able to completely observe her own memories.

"You'd need to be careful not to accidentally start dream-walking yourself while you're doing it, though," she added.

"Max has done it?" Isabel asked, surprised. He'd never mentioned that to her, but she supposed that was to be expected. She'd never mentioned several of the things she'd done to him. It wasn't a huge development in their abilities, and it wasn't even that useful of a gift. Besides, if Max knew that Tess could do it also, he probably just assumed that his sister had done it as well. She was, after all, the one with the ability to enter dreams. This was supposed to be her area of expertise.

"You can see things more clearly when you do it," Tess continued, not answering Isabel's question, knowing it was a rhetorical one anyway. "Although, you are limited to only being able to see things that you saw the first time around…" She trailed off, considering this drawback, then commented, "You know, humans can do something like it. Relive memories in their dreams, I mean. So really, we've just taken that a step further. It's not even that remarkable."

Isabel smiled at Tess' blatant dismissal of their gifts as anything to be impressed by. It had been a long time since she sat down with Tess and talked about things like this. She used to, in the past, before they'd drifted apart. She and Tess had similar gifts, ones that affected people's minds, and so Tess was always the best to talk to, the most understanding of the unique problems she faced in developing her abilities. When she was first learning to dream-walk, she'd accidentally enter people's dreams without meaning to. All she had to do was brush her fingers against a picture, and she'd be sucked into their subconscious. It was very nerve-wracking at first, and for a while, she refused to even look at photographs, terrified of what would happen.

But that was eight or nine years ago, and she'd learned control since then.

"So what's so special about this memory that you wanted to relive it?" Isabel asked, deciding that she might as well bring up the topic. It had been bothering her for a while, ever since she realized that Kyle had remembered it as well. She couldn't understand what was so important, but she was certain that the answer was right in front of her. She just had to figure it out.

"No reason," Tess answered with a shrug. "Sometimes I just like thinking about how things were before everything got so crazy."

"Kyle remembers it also," Isabel informed the other girl. "He dreamt about it."

Tess bit her lip and nodded, looking away. "Yeah, he mentioned that to me. It's weird, it was just an argument, and we had plenty of those growing up. I don't know why he even remembers."

"Why do you remember?" Isabel pressed. She was surprised Tess hadn't kicked her out yet, but she guessed that the other girl didn't want to admit that this conversation was upsetting to her. She was still trying to pretend that the memory was significant at all. And Isabel would have believed her, she was a good enough liar. She just… some sixth sense was telling her this was significant.

Tess shrugged. "I don't know. The brain is a weird thing, and even I won't be so arrogant to claim I understand any of it."

"That shape-shifter knew I had been in the dream," Isabel said thoughtfully. "He called me after you kicked me out of it, and told me… something about how we all lose control over our gifts, and we needed to be careful not to slip up."

"That's good advice," Tess said with a laugh.

Isabel nodded and stood up. She wasn't going to get anything else out of Tess. "Well, thanks for the answers," she said as she left the room.

Tess watched her go, a contemplative expression on her face.

* * *

Michael tapped his pencil idly against the desk and stared at the homework problem in front of him. He really didn't care about this particular homework assignment; when in his life would trigonometry ever come in handy? Math was a waste of time.

On the other hand, now that he was a legal adult, he had to at least give the appearance of striving for academic achievement. One mistake, and he'd end up back in foster care, probably in a different city, far away from Max, Isabel, and Tess.

His phone rang, and he reached for it automatically, not bothering to check the caller I.D. After he answered, he could have kicked himself for that, he really did not want to talk to Max right now.

"What do you want, Maxwell?" he asked wearily. The combination of remembering his previous argument with Max and still struggling through these stupid math problems was driving him crazy and leaving him in a very bad mood.

"I wanted to talk to you about Nick Latcher," Max replied.

Michael rolled his eyes, even though he knew Max couldn't see him. "If you're worried that I am going to jeopardize our secret…"

"He's dead."

Michael stopped talking. For one brief, ludicrous moment, he debated asking Max whether or not he'd killed him. But that was ridiculous, Max would not kill another person. Instead, he asked, "How do you know?"

"Liz told me. One of Valenti's deputies discovered the body," Max explained. There was a pause, and then the sound of him drawing a deep breath. "It sounded like they weren't really sure if it was an unnatural death, but…" Max stopped talking, and Michael finished the sentence for him.

"We don't believe in coincidences."

Max gave a bitter laugh. "Right." Again, he paused again, then said, "When you talked to him, did he say anything about thinking he was in danger?"

Michael stood up and walked away from the desk, finally fully forgetting about math homework and focusing on the conversation at hand. "No, but he knew a lot about the FBI. Maybe they're on to him?"

But Max responded, "If the FBI killed him, he'd have been shot or something. Valenti would have known it was homicide. The only people who could kill him and make it look like a natural death…"

Michael considered this, then countered, "We don't actually know what the FBI is capable of. Maybe they poisoned him." There were too many unknowns for them to rule out the possibility of human interference.

Although, they knew for a fact that the shape-shifter had no problem killing perceived threats.

Michael glanced at the clock on the wall, noting the time. It was getting late in the afternoon, and he was supposed to pick up the dinner shift at the Crashdown. This conversation and his homework would have to wait, right now he needed to earn a paycheck so he could actually afford the rent.

"I've got to get to work," Michael announced. "What do you want to do about the reporter?"

Max couldn't help but retort, "I thought you were tired of me making the decisions?"

Michael clenched his fist tightly around the phone, his knuckles turning white, as she strove to keep from snapping back at Max. "I'm tired of you telling me I'm reckless and stupid."

Max gave a snort of disbelief and pointed out, "Most of the time you _are_ reckless and stupid." It probably wasn't the smartest thing to say at the moment, but as they were only talking on the phone, and not face-to-face, Max knew Michael wouldn't actually be able to physically attack him.

"And you're not?" Michael growled.

"No, Michael, I'm not," Max retorted. "I screwed up. _Once_. You do it over and over and over."

"Really?" Michael drawled. "So that's what I am, then? The guy who always screws up?" He didn't want to hear the answer, fairly certain that he knew what Max was going to say. So he adroitly changed the subject, "I've got to get to work. I'll talk to you later."

"No," Max snapped. "No, we're going to take a few minutes and finish this conversation now because we are in an incredible amount of danger and we won't be able to stay safe if we can't even get along."

"What makes you say that? We never got along with Tess and that wasn't an issue," Michael replied, shrugging to himself. He glanced again at the clock, and debated hanging up on Max.

"We always got along with Tess when it mattered," Max countered. He sighed, then added, "Look, I healed Liz. I told her our secret. It was huge and I fully understand why you all were angry at me. But I've taken responsibility for my actions. And since then, I've done everything possible to keep us together an safe."

"And you don't think I have?" Michael asked incredulously. Everything he did, he did to protect the group. Well, mostly everything…

"I think you try to keep us safe, but you don't think things all the way through, and you never take responsibility for your recklessness," Max answered honestly. "You went to Marathon, and we had to follow you. You wandered around in the forest at the camping trip, and we had to follow you. You've broken into Valenti's office and Ms. Topolski's apartment without even thinking about what would happen if you got caught."

"It all worked out, didn't it?" Michael replied pointedly. "We got useful information."

"Yes, but not always because of anything you did." Max hesitated, wanting to bring up one last instance, but not entirely sure if he could. Finally deciding to throw caution to the wind, he added, "And what about when you wanted to flee Roswell and live as a fugitive for the rest of your life after Hank ended up in the hospital? _That_ only worked out because I broke my promise to you and went to my father."

Michael felt the color drain from his face as he remembered that incident. He remembered his rage at Max, his fear of the consequences of his actions, his worry for everyone's safety… but mostly, he remembered Isabel, in tears, begging him not to leave, asking him how she was supposed to be okay if he just disappeared and she never saw him again.

Max continued, "All that information that you gathered is useful, Michael, but to me, to Isabel and Tess… and I'm sure to Maria… all that information is not worth your life."

"You would rather not know about Atherton? Riverdog? Nasedo? The FBI, Topolski, Pierce?" Michael asked incredulously.

"Not if it meant you dying," Max answered firmly. Then he added dryly, "You may not realize this, but someone of us do actually care about you." Again, he paused, before saying, "Look, maybe I am overbearing. Maybe I dictate too much. But you force me into that position when I have to look after you all the time. When I have to constantly look after all of us."

Michael didn't answer for a moment, trying to figure out what he wanted to say. Finally, he simply snapped into the phone, "I have to go to work," and hung up.

Max was an arrogant jerk, Michael decided as he grabbed a coat and headed to the door. He refused to consider the possibility that, even if Max was an arrogant jerk, he was also right.

* * *

_Jim shoved some of the pages aside and momentarily rubbed his weary eyes. He shot a quick glance at young Tess, who was staring blankly out the window. Kyle had his head buried in the refrigerator, searching for food._

"_There's no hamburger," Kyle announced in a whiny tone, turning towards his father as though the Sheriff could somehow make hamburger magically appear._

"You really can't just leave it alone, can you?" Tess said with a sigh, turning away from the scene with an annoyed expression.

Isabel materialized before her, and shook her head. "If it is a pointless memory, Tess, why do you keep coming back to it?" she asked. It was the first time that she had dream-walked since being trapped in her own dreams, and she wouldn't have done it if she didn't feel such a pressing need to understand.

"Why do you care?" Tess shot back, frustrated.

"I don't know," Isabel admitted. "But, for some reason, I do care. I can't tell you why or how, but I know that this is important. It's important to you, and…"

"And you're too curious to realize that maybe you should just stay out of my issues? It doesn't affect you," Tess snapped, folding her arms over her chest and glaring at Isabel with barely-controlled fury.

"You and Kyle are thinking about it. The same pointless memory. That's not a coincidence, Tess. Just like it wasn't a coincidence that the shape-shifter came to visit you in this dream," Isabel countered. "What is so important…"

Tess cut her off, face red with anger, "Why is this so damn important to you that you can't just leave it alone?"

"_I guess it all got eaten," Jim replied to his son. "There's some pasta." He seemed supremely unconcerned by Kyle's distress._

"_I don't want pasta, I want hamburger," little Kyle retorted. He spun towards Tess and demanded angrily, "Did you eat it?"_

"I'm just trying to understand," Isabel defended herself.

Tess rolled her eyes. "No, you're just trying to satisfy your own curiosity, without any thought of how I might feel about your invasion of privacy," she countered coldly, turning away from Isabel and glancing back at the dream versions of herself, Kyle, and Jim.

Isabel knew she should just let it go and leave the dream. It would only upset Tess more, and the last thing any of them wanted was more tension among the group. Michael and Max were currently not speaking, and with everything that had been happening…

But she couldn't let it go.

Was it a coincidence that she had stumbled across this dream? Was it a coincidence that the shape-shifter had contacted after she had witnessed this particular memory?

She didn't believe in coincidences.

"I just feel like I need to know," Isabel said at last, shrugging. "I don't know why, I just do." She tilted her head to the side, and added, "And I don't think ignoring instincts is a good idea."

"_You ate it!" Kyle cried, his face screwed up in fury. "Daddy, Tess ate the hamburger that I wanted!"_

"_Well, we can get hamburger later," Jim replied with a dismissive tone. "Right now you can have the pasta." He didn't even bother looking up at his son._

Tess stared at Isabel, then sighed and said, "Did you ever wonder why Jim adopted me?" She glanced quickly at her younger self, watching the girl turn wide blue eyes towards Kyle, the boy who would eventually become her brother. "I always knew that my ending up in Roswell was… well, destined. Meant to happen. But for me to actually be adopted…"

"Jim was really good friends with Andrew and Jessica, and…"

"And Andrew and Jessica had other friends as well," Tess pointed out dryly. "Jim could have made sure I was adopted by good people. He was a single parent, I never even met Kyle's mother. So why would an over-worked, over-burdened single father adopt a random girl?"

Isabel just stared.

Tess gave a bitter chuckle. "Nasedo said you'd figure it out. He said, sooner or later, you'd start to wonder how I ended up here." She gave Isabel a sardonic smile. "But I think he might have given you too much credit, you're really not that perceptive."

"_I hate you!" Kyle hissed, glaring at little Tess in a fury. "I wish you had never come here. You ruin everything!"_

_Little Tess looked back at him, tears pooling in her eyes. She was so focused on her own fears and hurts she barely heard Jim's reprimand. Instead, she blinked away the tears and closed her eyes tightly, trying to push out Kyle's harsh and thoughtless words. _

Isabel blinked, not understanding, but Tess gestured to the younger dream version of herself.

"What does it look like I am doing right now?" Tess demanded icily.

Isabel glanced at the child, at the tightly closed eyes, the wrinkles on the forehead, the way she was not paying any attention to anything around her… She'd seen Tess look that exact same way before, seen that expression when Tess was…

"Oh, God," Isabel breathed, suddenly understanding. She raised disbelieving eyes to Tess and said quietly, and with some disgust, "You're here because… Jim adopted you because… you forced him to… you _mind-warped_ him?"

Tess' blue eyes were cold as she nodded, and the next moment Isabel felt herself shoved out of the dreaming, flying backwards until she found herself in her own room, lying on her bed, staring up at the ceiling in shock and surprise.

* * *

Next Chapter: Normalcy, or Lack Thereof

Due: Sun 5/27


	76. Normalcy, or Lack Thereof

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: So I keep trying to post this chapter, but FFN is being strange. I really hope it works this time... Most of the dialogue between Max and Brody is taken directly from the show, so anything that looks famliar isn't mine.

* * *

Chapter Seventy-Five: Normalcy, or Lack Thereof

Max lifted the lid on one of the boxes and stared at the contents suspiciously. So far, every box he had leafed through had contained nothing more than maps, newspaper articles, physics and molecular biology textbooks, and lists of websites relating to aliens. Nothing incriminating, nothing to make Max suspect that Brody was anything other than a regular alien-obsessed guy.

Until this box.

Max reached out and lightly touched the crystal. It was glowing underneath his hand, vibrating and humming with a strange energy he didn't fully understand, but one that felt familiar nonetheless. He sucked in a sharp breath and shook his head, wondering.

He still had the map he had stolen, the one with the mark in the middle of Pohlman Ranch. That had to mean something. And then there was the information he'd found while web-surfing, all the stuff about four-square and the symbol. And Atherton.

The crystal was not a normal crystal. There was something special about it, something different.

Which meant Brody was more than just an average guy.

"What are you doing?"

Max jumped, eyes wide as he spun around to face Brody. He hadn't heard the other man enter the room, but there he was, standing only a few paces away, staring at Max coldly. He'd asked Max to move the last of the boxes and leave them outside the door that lead to the backroom. They weren't for public view, but he still didn't allow Max into that secret room.

Max sucked in air and tried to think of a viable lie. "I… the lid fell off, so I was just… putting it back on…" he explained, knowing even as he said the words that he didn't sound believable.

Brody folded his arms over his chest. "The lid of the box just fell off?" he asked disbelievingly, sparing the box in question a brief glance.

Brody was tired. He'd been up several nights this week with his daughter, and the lack of sleep was starting to wear him down. He'd entrusted Max with this job, believing the young man trustworthy enough not to snoop through the contents of these particular boxes. He supposed he should have known better, natural curiosity always got the better of people.

Of course, curiosity killed the cat as well…

And there was something a little different about Max, something that didn't quite fit the right way. Brody liked the teenager, and hated to think anything ill of him, but there was something just a little off…

"I'm sorry," Max said at last, breaking the heavy silence that had fallen.

"Rather a strange coincidence that it was that particular box that opened," Brody said skeptically. He walked over to it and lifted out the crystal. It wasn't glowing anymore.

Max didn't know what to say. He just stared at Brody, debating the wisdom of turning and running. Was Brody another alien? Was he a threat? Was he the shape-shifter? But there was no way of answering any of those questions without revealing who he was, and he wasn't willing to put his own life in danger. Or anyone else's.

It was dark outside. Night had fallen, and in a few minutes he was supposed to head home. This had been his final project of the day, moving all the boxes. He had known it would be his last chance to see what sorts of things were being kept in that back room, and he'd jumped at the opportunity without really thinking it through.

As he stared at Brody, holding the crystal and glaring back at him, he couldn't help but think that this was exactly the sort of situation Michael often found himself in.

* * *

"Why didn't you tell me?" Michael demanded, shaking with anger. After his phone conversation with Max, he'd gone to work. But his mind had still been on everything he'd learned, and he'd burnt several hamburgers and served up too many mushy fries to pretend that everything was actually okay.

The minute he was off work, he'd gone to find Liz, and demanded to know exactly how she had known about Nick's death. Liz had been reluctant to tell him, but she'd explained that Maria had overheard Valenti talking about it, and mentioned it casually to her later. Michael had then left Liz's, filled with frustration and fury. Why would Maria tell Liz and not him?

And so here he was, standing on Maria's doorstep, glaring at his girlfriend.

"It wasn't like I was hiding it from you. I just figured since I'd told Liz, you'd find out anyway," Maria answered, shooting a quick glance back into the house. Her mother was sleeping now, and she didn't want Michael to wake her up.

"Why didn't you come to me first?" Michael asked, rolling his eyes at Maria's reply.

"Liz is my best friend," Maria snapped. She understood that Michael was upset, he never liked it when people kept things from him. But he had no right to come here and start shouting at her. She was allowed to tell Liz anything she wanted, and just because she and Michael were dating didn't mean he got to be the first to know everything.

"I'm your boyfriend," Michael retorted.

Maria rubbed her eyes wearily. "I know that," she answered in annoyance. Sometimes talking to Michael was like beating her head against a wall; she never made any progress, and only ever ended up with a headache. "Can you keep your voice down? My mom is sleeping."

Michael had the grace to look slightly ashamed and nodded. "Sorry," he muttered, not wanting to wake up Amy DeLuca and draw her attention to this conversation. "But would you at least be honest with me? You called me the minute you were done talking to Nick before. This time, you made a choice not to call me. Why?"

"Because you went rushing recklessly off to talk to the reporter!" Maria replied. "I didn't want you to do that again. You don't stop to think, and you could have gotten hurt."

"I can take care of myself," Michael growled, grabbing Maria's arm. Maria tried to pull away from him, but he still held onto her. "I'm a big boy, Maria."

"I know you can take care of yourself," Maria whispered, tears pricking at her eyes. She didn't want to be having this conversation right now. She shouldn't have told him the real reason she didn't call him, she shouldn't have told him that she didn't trust him not to think before he acted. She could tell how much it hurt him to hear her say that.

"Then why don't you trust me?"

"I do trust you," Maria said softly, shaking her head. "You just… sometimes… let your emotions get the better of you. We all do that, but this is dangerous, and I… someone _murdered_ the reporter, Michael. I didn't want that to happen to you too."

"Great," Michael said coldly. "So you think I'm too reckless also? Would you prefer that I turn into Max?"

Maria finally managed to yank her arm out of his grasp. A slight bruise was forming where he had grabbed her, pale enough it would probably fade by tomorrow, but dark enough that she could see it in the dim night light.

"Max wouldn't get so upset that he'd hurt Liz," Maria said pointedly, rubbing her arm.

Michael took a step back as though he'd been slapped. He stared at Maria, then shifted his gaze down to her arm. "I'm sorry," he stuttered before turning to leave.

"Wait," Maria called after him. He paused and turned to look up at her. "Are you going to search the reporter's hotel room?" she asked.

Michael gave no reply. He wasn't really sure what he was going to do. He'd come to Maria's full of righteous anger, but now he was just confused.

Maria, however, didn't wait for a reply. She disappeared for a moment, then came out onto the steps wearing a sweater and carrying her purse with her. "I'm coming with you," she explained as she locked the door to her house and hurried down the path towards Michael. "We can take my car."

* * *

"I knew there was something different about you," Brody continued as he paced back and forth across the floor. "I knew it from the moment you first stepped in to this Center. It wasn't just that you were looking for a job… you were drawn here, weren't you?"

Max swallowed and nodded. Right now, his best bet was probably just to play along until he could figure out exactly what Brody was talking about. Still, he was not as good at improvising as Michael, and he couldn't help but with the other alien was here.

"You're like me, aren't you?" Brody breathed at last. "I knew it!"

Max subconsciously clenched his hands into fists, feelings the energy of his gifts bubbling just below the surface of his skin. He was ready to fight if need be, although he silently prayed that it wouldn't come to that.

Brody didn't wait for Max to answer. Instead, he looked down at the crystal still clenched in his fist. "Why are you really here, Max?" he asked softly, the accusation fading from his voice.

"Why are you?" Max retorted, chancing a quick glance at the exit. If he could distract Brody long enough to slip outside… surely Brody wouldn't attack him out in the open. Would he?

"I'm not here to answer your questions," Brody replied, his voice become stern and cold.

"No," Max replied, throwing caution to the winds, "you're here because of that crystal. Because of Roswell. Because of the crash in 1947."

Brody laughed, but his eyes remained guarded. "I suspected we were alike, you and I. You're more perceptive than I have you credit for, however. I should have watched you more carefully. I would have, had I known you'd figure it out this quickly."

"Why are you here? What do you want?" Max pressed, his throat constricting tightly.

"The same thing we all want, Max. To re-establish contact." Brody looked away, his eyes darkening slightly. "Two years of recovered-memory therapy and still the only thing I can remember about my abduction is the color of the walls, the smell of burnt hair."

"Abduction?" Max echoed, staring at Brody and realizing with a jolt that the eccentric UFO Center owner didn't think he was an alien. Brody himself wasn't an alien. He was talking about abduction, about being abducted by aliens. That's what he thought had happened to Max, that's why he thought they were similar.

"Yeah, I know. I hate the word, too," Brody said with a grimace. He still wasn't looking at Max, instead he was staring out into the distance, a faraway look in his eyes. "I mean, you can tell people you've seen the Virgin Mary, and they'll light candles outside your bathroom. But you tell them you've been abducted by aliens and they'll write you off as a lunatic…"

"How did it happen?" Max asked curiously.

Brody turned and looked at Max as though seeing him for the first time. "I was driving my car on the Massachusetts Turnpike, and before I know it, two days have gone by, and I'm in West Virginia." He smiled slightly at Max's shocked expression and said, "I would have written it off as an acid flashback, but then my doctor tells me that the cancer was gone. It was in the bone marrow. Terminal. A year to live, and then poof… gone."

"And all that stuff you keep in the backroom? It that for re-establishing contact?" Max asked, gently prodding for answers.

"Some of it," Brody replied. "And some is just for studying the different electromagnetic waves around here. I want to find these aliens, I want to know how they contacted me, abducted me… how they made the cancer go away…" He sighed and shook his head. "There are aliens out there, Max. We both know that. I don't mean like they're walking among us or anything stupid, but they _are_ there."

"You'd get a lot of money and prestige if you could prove that," Max remarked casually, watching Brody with a slightly suspicious feeling. Why was Brody doing this? Why did he want to find the aliens so badly? He didn't even appear to be remotely afraid of whoever had abducted him in the past. He wasn't thinking of the risks or dangers, only of the rewards.

But what reward would be worth risking his health, safety, sanity, reputation, and very life?

"It's not the money or prestige that I'm after," Brody said with a shrug.

"Then why?"

Brody's expression changed, his eyes reflecting something different, something infinitely saddened. For a moment, he seemed lost and heartbroken, afraid, forlorn, and yet hopeful at the same time.

"I have to," he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

And Max understood.

The aliens had saved Brody's life. They'd taken away his cancer, given him back his health. If they could do that for him… could they do it for someone else as well?

"Sydney?" Max guessed.

Everything about Brody seemed to crumble under the weight of the name. He dropped the crystal back into the box and closed the lid. "You'd better go, Max," he said with a sigh. "Your parents will start to wonder where you are."

Max pushed back the urge to ask more questions and left the room quickly, his footsteps echoing in the silence that had fallen. At the door, he paused and chanced a glance back at Brody. The other man's shoulders were hunched over, his expression worn and tired. Max shook his head slowly, unhappily, and left the Center, letting the door swing shut behind him.

* * *

"So, what exactly are we looking for?" Maria whispered as she peered through the dark room.

"I'm not sure," Michael admitted. The Sheriff's men had already been through here, so it was hard to say whether or not there was anything left to find. Michael could only hope that if there was anything in here, it hadn't already been found by the deputies.

Maria walked over to the window and glanced out of it. The hotel room had a great view of the parking lot, and beyond that, the street. Michael glanced around the room, taking in the rumpled bed sheets and pillows.

"They didn't find a cause of death?" Michael asked slowly, glancing over at Maria.

She turned away from the window and nodded at him. "That's what Valenti said when he was talking on the phone. I don't know if anything's changed since then."

"I think we'd hear about it if it had," Michael reasoned. It was a small town, and news of homicides traveled quickly. Especially after all the strange happenings lately.

Maria moved to the table next to the bed and carefully opened the laptop computer. She was surprised that it hadn't been confiscated by the Sheriff's department. Pressing the power button, she waited for it to start up.

"Did you find anything?" she asked Michael.

Michael shook his head. "Just clothing in all of the drawers," he replied, standing up and moving away from the chest. He began searching through the open suitcase, and muttered under his breath, "Max would probably disapprove of this…"

Maria frowned at the soft comment and replied, "Well, Max does have a different idea of what a date entails than you do. I mean, he and Liz go to the movies or out for dinner. That's a _normal_ date. You and I… we break into apartments."

Michel sent Maria an annoyed glare and said, "Would you prefer to be dating Max?"

"All I'm saying is that Max and Liz are very Romeo and Juliet. In love despite all the obstacles. Romantic. And you and I are very… Mulder and Scully. Buffy and Angel. Louis and Clark. We fight evil and break into people's homes. Not so romantic… And definitely not normal."

"Don't Romeo and Juliet die at the end?" Michael commented acerbically.

"Not funny," Maria whispered under her breath as the laptop screen sprung to life. "Did you check the trashcan?"

Michael gave her a blank look.

Maria rolled her eyes impatiently. "Check the trash, Michael," she repeated. "Everyone knows that's where you find things about people. Honestly, you've broken into the Sheriff's office, Atherton's home, and Ms. Topolski's apartment and you still don't know this? I've even told you this before…" She trailed off, shaking her head in amusement and annoyance.

Clearly, she made a much better snoopy babysitter than Michael did.

Instead of arguing like he usually would have done, Michael walked over to the trashcan and began rummaging through the contents. The reporter had discarded a granola bar wrapper, two broken pens, and a scrap of paper with a phone number on it.

He pulled out the paper with the phone number and stared at it thoughtfully.

Maria frowned at the computer desktop. All of the files were locked, she couldn't get into them without a password. She had no idea how to break into files either. On a whim, she opened the email and glanced through the inbox. It was mostly filled with correspondence between his friends, family, and coworkers. She read through a few of the emails; there didn't appear to be anything interesting there.

Michael walked over to Maria and handed her the piece of paper. She glanced at the number before turning her eyes back to the computer screen. "Call it," she suggested. They'd done that before, with the phone number they'd found in the trashcan in Ms. Topolski's old apartment.

But Michael shook his head. "I don't have to," he replied grimly.

Maria raised a questioning eyebrow. "That's how you find out who's number it is, Michael," she said slowly, as though she was explaining this to a toddler. "Like what we did with the number in Ms. Topolski's apartment… remember?"

Michael glared at her long enough to get her to lapse into silence, then said simply, "I remember. I also remember that this," he gestured to the scrap of paper, "is the same number."

Maria stared at him, not quite understanding. Finally, realization lit up her features as the meaning of Michael's words sunk in. "Are you sure?" she breathed. "That was a while ago, maybe you don't remember all the numbers exactly?"

"I'm sure," Michael said firmly. There were some things he simply didn't forget. He attributed this ability to his alien gifts, and he knew that sometimes Max, Tess, and Isabel could recall pieces of information from years ago. He was completely and absolutely sure that this number was the one that they had found in Ms. Topolski's room, the one that lead to…

"But that was Pierce's number," Maria protested, unwilling to believe. "Are you saying the reporter was FBI?"

"If the shape-shifter killed him… it would make sense that he's FBI," Michael mused.

Maria remained silent for a moment, then turned quickly back to the computer. "I'm going to check if he sent out any emails before he died. Maybe we can figure out exactly why he was here and…" She didn't finish the sentence, instead her eyes went wide and she felt the words catch in her throat.

Michael stepped around to her side and glanced at the screen. She'd opened the first sent email, addressed to Cynthia Drake…

"Oh my God," Maria whispered.

"Do you think the Sheriff found this? We're screwed if he did," Michael muttered, scanning the contents.

Maria considered the question for a moment, then replied, "No, I don't. If the Sheriff knew about all this… well, he'd come after us, wouldn't he? I mean… this guy mentions you, Michael." Maria pointed to a sentence on the screen explaining about Hank and Michael's relationship and Hank's death.

"How does he know all this?" Michael wondered aloud. But Nick Latcher was an investigative reporter, discovering this type of story was his job. And he was good at it.

"I'm going to forward this to myself, and then delete it from his sent mail," Maria decided. "That way, if Valenti comes back and looks at the computer later, he won't find anything."

Michael nodded absently as he walked away from the computer and started looking through the other contents of the room. There wasn't really anything else to find, and his mind was preoccupied by other thoughts. Nick knew so much about all of them. He didn't know that Michael was an alien, he didn't even seen to suspect that. But he knew that the FBI was investigating them, and he knew a lot about all the different players in this saga. Michael, Max, Isabel, Tess, Liz, Maria, Pierce, Topolski…

If he was able to find all that information, then did that mean anyone else could as well?

What did they do now? Pretend that everything was normal and ignore this new information? Try to find out what exactly Valenti knows? Start looking for Pierce?

This was the sort of decision that Max usually made… And more often than not Michael disagreed with Max's final decision, but he had to admit that right now he really did not want to be the one who had to decide the path they would take to protect themselves. There were too many unknowns, too many risks. Whatever choice they made, it could very well end up destroying them all.

"I don't prefer Max."

Michael started, pulling his mind from his thoughts and glancing at Maria. She was turning off that laptop and shutting the cover and not looking at him.

"What?" he asked, not sure he heard her right.

"You asked if I would prefer to be dating Max," Maria replied, unconsciously rubbing the slight bruise on her forearm where Michael had grabbed her earlier in the evening. "I wouldn't. I'd take confused Slayer and Vampire-with-a-Soul over star-crossed lovers any day."

Michael wasn't really sure what to say. They were silent for a moment, neither looking at the other, then he finally remarked, "We should get out of here."

Maria nodded, and followed him to the door.

* * *

"You okay, Max?" Liz asked as she paused next to his locker. He hadn't even registered her presence, and his face held a look of contemplative worry. She was anxious, had something happened?

Max blinked at her. He'd left Brody, and spent the entire night unable to think of anything other than Sydney. He wasn't entirely sure how he was going to make it through today when he couldn't forget last night's conversation.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said at last. He needed to talk to Michael, Isabel, and Tess. He needed to reassure them that Brody wasn't a threat, he was just a father desperately trying to save his daughter. He needed…

"You don't look fine," Liz objected, tilting her head to the side.

"I think Brody Davis' daughter is dying," Max said finally. He looked at Liz, brown eyes filled with frustration and annoyance. "I… Brody and I talked and we… he told me things…" He couldn't put it into words, he couldn't explain exactly why this upset him so much. Just the look in Brody's eyes when he mentioned Sydney's name…

"Max?" Liz asked softly, her doe-eyes filled with concern.

"I wonder what it must be like… knowing that someone you love so much is dying… and not being able to do anything about it," Max murmured, shaking his head.

Liz slipped her hand into his, entwining their fingers. She didn't know what else to do.

Max forcefully shoved all thoughts of Brody aside and stared at Liz. She seemed so upset for him, so concerned, and he did not like the thought that he was causing her added anguish. He offered a slightly smile, and dropping his voice, whispered, "Oh… and Brody thinks I've been abducted by aliens before."

"What?" Liz asked, eyes widening.

"He… he's been abducted, in the past. He thinks that I have also, and that's why I'm drawn to the UFO Center. To him, and everything he does. He thinks… well, he thinks that there are aliens somewhere out there, and he wants to find them again."

Liz stared at Max, and suddenly started laughing. She hadn't meant to, but the mirth just bubbled out of her, filling the air of the school hallway, expanding and growing until she had to clutch onto the smooth metal of the lockers to stay upright.

"Liz?"

"He wants to establish contact with aliens," she said in a barely audible tone, realizing that her laughter was drawing the attention of the other students. "He has all this technology, all these different machines he'd brought to find the aliens… and you're right there. Actually working for him." She continued laughing, barely able to catch her breath.

Max blinked. The irony was rather amusing.

"He thinks you've been abducted," Liz continued. "You being abducted by aliens… You…" She dissolved into another fit of giggles. "Is nothing ever normal for you?" she managed to ask, gasping out the words. "Abduction…by aliens… you…"

Max couldn't help it, he started laughing as well.

* * *

"I cannot believe you!" Isabel hissed, glowering in fury at Tess. The two girls were standing out in the quad, talking angrily to each other. It was lunch time, and most of the other students had opted to sit further away from the arguing girls, not wanting to get drawn into whatever the argument was. Tess was in a foul mood, and Isabel was livid, and it probably wasn't going to be pleasant.

"Isabel," Tess started. She really didn't know what to say. She never wanted to have this conversation with Isabel, with anyone. She had never planned on revealing this much about her first years in Roswell. How could she explain what she had done? How could she justify it? How could she get Isabel to understand why that dream, that memory, was so important, so troublesome, for her?

Only a few minutes before, Max had approached Tess and quickly explained everything that happened with this reporter. Apparently he'd come to town, interrogated Michael and Maria, discovered a whole bunch about them, made a deal with the FBI, and died, all before anyone thought to tell her that he was even here. She was less than pleased about being outside the loop on that one, and it was contributing to her frustration at Isabel.

"All those times you got mad at us for asking you to interfere with Jim's investigation, all those times you were angry with Max for wanting you to mind-warp him or Kyle… and you'd already done it. Only for more selfish reasons! We did it so that we wouldn't get discovered and dissected by the FBI, you just wanted Jim to take you in so that you wouldn't have to worry about anything else. You are such a hypocrite!"

"Shut up, Isabel," Tess said in a deathly calm voice. "You don't have a clue what you are talking about."

"Oh, I know _exactly_ what I am talking about," Isabel spat. "You did the same thing to Alex when he first discovered the truth, didn't you? You planted fear in his mind. And you would have done it to Maria, and you did it to Liz once. Max told me about that, about how you used your gifts to upset her when she first found out what you could do… You never had any moral problems with playing with peoples minds. You just wanted us to believe that you did." Isabel paused long enough to gather her breath before launching into the rest of her tirade. "What else have you done, Tess? Huh? Who else have you mind-warped to get your way? One of us? Max, Michael, or I? All that 'We're family and I would never use my gifts on you' talk was just that… _talk_. You don't care who's privacy you violate as long as it serves your own ends."

Tess slapped her.

It was the only time Isabel could ever remember Tess physically hitting someone. The petite blonde was so good with verbal insults, she usually stuck with cruel words as her form of retaliation. Isabel reeled backwards, surprised and stunned.

Tess' face was completely white. Her eyes were narrowed into thin slits of blue ice, cold and hard. When she spoke, her voice was soft and low and shaking with barely controlled fury.

"Shut. Your. Mouth."

And Tess turned on her heel and walked away, leaving Isabel to stare after her in anger and disbelief.

"Are you alright?"

Isabel jumped and turned to see Alex approaching, worry in his gaze. He'd obviously seen the end of the argument, because he turned and glared at Tess' retreating figure.

"I'm fine, Alex," Isabel said with a sigh, running a hand through her hair. She didn't really know where all that pent-up anger had come from, but she was livid at Tess. All those times Tess had made them feel guilty about something they'd forced her to do, and she herself had done exactly the same thing…

"You sure? That looked like a pretty vicious argument," Alex commented.

Isabel nodded slowly, and shifted her gaze across the quad. Trudy and Sarah were walking towards her, having also witnessed the fight. She didn't know what she would tell them if they asked her what had happened.

Alex frowned as he too noticed Trudy and Sarah approaching. Not wanting to stick around and have Isabel's friends make fun of him, he started to walk away.

"Alex, wait," Isabel called, and he turned to look at her. She opened her mouth to say something, but then couldn't find the right words. She just looked at him, and he stared back.

"Your friends don't like me, Isabel," Alex said pointedly, nodding towards Trudy and Sarah.

"_I_ like you," Isabel answered, rushing to the say the words before she lost her nerve. She ran a hand through her hair, absently pulling at the strands. "There not bad people, Alex. I mean… I know that Sarah and Jessica weren't nice to you the other day, but… they're not bad people. They're… they're my friends."

"Then tell them you like me," Alex said, and was amazed that he actually had the courage to say this. In the past, he probably would have just accepted whatever Isabel said, agreed with it. He would have allowed her friends to treat him the way they did. But knowing the aliens was changing him, making him different. And he wanted more from Isabel now. He wanted her to like him enough to admit to that to others.

"What?" Isabel asked, confused.

"If they aren't bad people, if they are really your friends, then they will be okay with you liking me," Alex said. He stared at Isabel, throwing down the ultimatum, then took a breath and slowly exhaled. Without another word, he turned and walked away, just as Trudy and Sarah drew near to Isabel.

"Isabel? You okay?" Trudy asked.

Sarah glanced at Isabel, then at the direction Tess had gone, then at Alex's retreating back. "What happened?" she asked.

Isabel shook her head. "I don't really know," she muttered, more to herself than to Sarah.

* * *

"Are you alright?"

Tess glanced up to see Liz standing in front of her. The blonde alien had wandered around the empty hallways of the school for a moment, trying to figure out what to do. The argument with Isabel kept replaying through her mind, and she couldn't get the echoes to stop. She'd finally stopped next to her locker and slowly sunk to the ground where she was now sitting, knees pulled into her chest, lost in thought.

Until Liz appeared.

The brunette had not witnessed the fight between Isabel and Tess. She had not been outside to see what had happened. She didn't know anything of the memory that Isabel had seen. All she knew about the problems between Tess and the other aliens was that they were there; she didn't even really know what they were.

But she could tell that Tess was upset about something.

"I don't know," Tess admitted. She pushed a few blonde curls out of her eyes and stared blankly at the far wall, the smooth metal of the lockers, the dirty white paint on the walls.

"Is there anything I can do?" Liz asked. She didn't know why she was offering. Most days she wanted to get as far away from Tess as possible as she and the petite alien still did not really get along. But Tess just seemed so lost…

"No," Tess replied. "There's not." She looked up at Liz, pausing for a moment, then said, "But thank you for asking."

Liz nodded and walked away, half-wondering if this was all just a dream. Or had she really just had a civil conversation with Tess? Had Tess actually said 'thank you' to something?

Today was definitely not a normal one.

But, she reflected, she hadn't had a normal day in a long time. Perhaps normalcy was something she should just give up on.

* * *

Next Chapter: Stargazing

Due: Sun 6/3


	77. Stargazing

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Just to clarify some things; You'll find out about the crystal Brody has soon enough, and why he has it. As for the thing about him being healed, I took that from the show. The entire paragraph where Brody explains to Max that he had been abducted and would have thought that it was just an acid trip but he then discovered his cancer was gone is actually almost directly from one of the episodes of Season Two. I don't think we ever learn why Brody was healed, and I don't know if I am going to deal with the why behind that at all. At this point, for the story, it doesn't matter how he was healed, or why. Only that he was, and he wants the same for his daughter.

* * *

Chapter Seventy-Six: Stargazing

Isabel watched as Trudy and Jessica argued over the _People Magazine_. Trudy had been reading some story about some actress, and had made some comment about said actress that Jessica had clearly disagreed with. As a result, the two had been bickering nonstop for the past fifteen minutes, and Isabel couldn't even remember who the actress in question was.

She was too preoccupied by her other thoughts to care.

She wanted to tell her friends that she liked Alex. She wanted them to accept that, and still be friends with her. These girls, whom she never would have thought she could ever be friends with, whom she had discovered in the past few weeks actually did have a good side to them… She didn't want to have to face the reality that maybe they were just as self-centered and materialistic as so many people thought.

Plus, the argument with Tess still weighed on her mind. Tess' reaction to her comments had surprised her, and her face was still slightly tender where the petite blonde had slapped her. She had expected Tess to be defensive, cold, or spiteful. She had not expected that flash of rage and grief that had slipped through Tess' brilliantly blue eyes. She had not expected the loss of control.

"Are you alright?"

Isabel started as Trudy's concerned voice pulled her out of her reverie. She offered a smile to both Trudy and Jessica and nodded.

"I'm fine. Just thinking about something else."

"Tess?" Jessica guessed. By the time lunch was over earlier that day, everyone had heard of the argument that had broken out between the two girls, and of Tess' reaction to it. However, Tess had not been seen since. She skipped her last classes and disappeared. At first, Isabel had been worried that she'd driven Tess to do something stupid, or Tess had been kidnapped by their enemies. But she'd called Kyle after getting home and he'd informed her that Tess was fine. She'd just decided to ditch the after-lunch classes and had come home.

The relief Isabel felt at that was short lived. It soon turned to anger and then to frustration. Instead of facing what had just happened, Tess had decided to ignore it. To disappear from school. To avoid Isabel. As though if she didn't face the truth, it would go away. It wasn't like Tess to back down from a fight, and maybe, Isabel reasoned, it was because she was feeling guilty. In which case, she should own up to it instead of just pretending that everything was fine.

All that frustration had forced Isabel out of the house; she'd needed a walk to clear her head. Which had lead her to Jessica's house, where she discovered Trudy was having dinner. She'd joined her two friends, and they'd carefully avoided to mention anything about Tess.

Until now.

Isabel looked at Trudy for a moment, considering what to say. She couldn't actually explain what the argument had been about since these two girls didn't know about Tess' gifts. She finally opted for a shrug and a nod. There was no point in lying about it, all three of them knew she was thinking about Tess.

"What happened? What did you say to her?" Jessica asked curiously, tossing the magazine on the floor. "I've never seen her react like that."

"I don't know," Isabel admitted. "I mean, I know what I said, but I just didn't think she would react like that." She leaned back, wrapping her arms around her chest. "It's complicated," she added.

"Friendship always is," Trudy said gently.

Isabel wanted to explain that this was more than just friendship. Tess was her family, and family was quite possibly the most complicated relationship of them all. But she couldn't say it, so she just stared down at her crisscrossed arms, and sighed.

"You can tell us whatever it is," Jessica said with a frown. "We are your friends, after all."

Isabel almost laughed at that. Because they weren't her friends, not until Pam Troy had intervened and manipulated them all into being friends in an attempt to spite Trudy and Tess. Were they really her friends? Would they still be her friends five years from now? Would they still be her friends if they knew what species she really was? Would they still be her friends if she confessed to liking Alex?

"I can't," Isabel said at last. "I mean, I want to, but it's… personal."

Jessica narrowed her eyes and Trudy seemed put-out by the comment, but they accepted it in stiff silence.

Isabel drew a breath, pulling together all of her nerve, and said, "So… there's this guy that I like."

Jessica perked up and Trudy grinned.

"Who?"

Isabel lifted her eyes to stare straight at her friends and said, "Alex. Alex Whitman."

"Computer geek?" Jessica asked instantly, her expression falling into one of dismay. "You could have any guy you want, and you go for him?"

"He's nice," Isabel defended herself. "And… I think he's cute."

"Yeah, like a puppy. The kind that follows you everywhere with big sad eyes," Jessica said dismissively. "Can you imagine him tagging around with us? He's worse than Liz Parker when she was still with Kyle, and that's saying something." She turned to Trudy and shook her head. "Someone needs to explain to Isabel the meaning of the word 'cool.' Because he's not it."

"I think he's cool," Isabel said hotly, glaring angrily at Jessica.

"Then you have lousy taste in guys," Jessica said simply.

Isabel turned to Trudy, eyebrow raised in a question. "What do you think?" she demanded.

Trudy shrugged. "He's not my type," she answered.

"That's because your type is guys who are obsessed with other girls. I never understood what it was with so many girls falling for Kyle," a voice said, and all three sets of eyes swung towards the door of the room. Sara walked into the room, a tight smile on her face, and stared at Isabel. "Alex, huh?"

"Let me guess, you have a problem with him also?" Isabel asked, rolling her eyes.

"Why would you want to commit social suicide?" Sara asked curiously, giving Isabel a confused look. She simply didn't understand why someone who could date any boy in the school would settle for Alex Whitman.

"I like Alex," Isabel replied, defending her decision. "And he likes me."

"Bad choice, if you want my opinion. At least in Trudy's case, both Kyle and Jason are decent people to date… But again, that's only if you want my opinion."

"I don't," Isabel said. She glanced back at the other girls. How could she have ever assumed that these people would be her friends. They were so… shallow. Spinning to look at Jessica, she added, "Instead of teaching me the meaning of the word 'cool,' maybe someone should teach you the meaning of the word 'friend.'" And she stalked from the room.

She breezed down the stairs, past Jessica's parents, and out the front door onto the lawn. She started walking back towards her own house, when she heard the sound of her name being called.

"Isabel, wait!"

A moment later, Trudy had caught up with her and grabbed her by the arm.

Isabel yanked her arm out of Trudy's grip. Placing her hands on her hips, she stared down the other girl. "What do you want?"

"You didn't have to leave," Trudy said, shifting her weight from foot to foot and glancing back at the house. Both Sara and Jessica had been stunned by Isabel's outburst, but Trudy was the one who had elected to follow and talk to her. Now, however, as she stared at her friend, she didn't know what to say.

"Why would I stay? So that you can insult the guy I like some more?" Isabel retorted. She licked her dry lips and continued, "At least I know what type of people you are now. Better to figure that out late than never."

Trudy's temper flared. "Oh really?" she asked coolly. "And tell me, Isabel, what did you figure out? What type of people are we?"

"You're shallow, materialistic, status-obsessed people who can't see anything besides money, looks, and popularity," Isabel snapped. She knew Trudy was probably the one of them who least deserve to bear the brunt of her anger. After all, she hadn't said anything about Alex, and she was, in general, the nicest of the group. But Isabel was too upset to care about that right now. She lashed out viciously instead.

Trudy's eyes narrowed into thin slits, but she said nothing, letting Isabel continue.

"What would you do if I start dating Alex? Refuse to speak to me again? Kick me out of the group? God, I can't believe you! I can't believe I was ever friends with you." Laughing bitterly, Isabel added, "I guess I really misjudged you, didn't I?"

Trudy took a moment to collect her thoughts before she answered in a quiet voice, "We never kicked Kyle out of the group for dating Liz. When you started being friends with us, we never told you that you weren't allowed to hang out with Max, Michael, Liz, and Maria anymore. And no one would have refused to be friends with you if you started dating Alex."

"No, you all would have just mocked him every second… exactly like all of you did when Liz and Kyle were dating," Isabel spat back. "How can you call yourself my friend?"

Trudy didn't say anything for a moment. Then she replied in a quiet voice, "When Sara's mother was dying of breast cancer three years ago, Jessica, Tess, and I went to the hospital to be with Sara almost every night. When we hang out, the other three always try to find activities where I don't have to pay anything, because my family doesn't have the kind of money that they do… or that your family does. When Jessica was having trouble in history last year, Tess edited every single one of her essays, and Sara studied with her before every exam. And when you were really sick just a few days ago, we all took turns coming to visit you, bringing you notes and homework for the classes you had missed. Friendship isn't measured just by what people say, Isabel, it's measured by what they do also."

Isabel felt her anger ebb slightly at the soft disappointment in Trudy's words. But she didn't say anything, because she also knew that friendship might be about what people do, but it was still certainly about what people say as well.

"I can't change what my friends are like, and even if I could, I wouldn't want to. But no one is attempting to change you either. You can date Alex, just like Kyle did with Liz. And you can yell at us if we insult him, just like Kyle did with Liz. Or you can just assume that, because we have faults, we aren't worth your time and effort. But if you really think that we would have just stopped being friends with you because you liked Alex, if you thought you could change Sara, Jessica, or Tess into something different, if you don't think we care about each other or you at all… Then I guess you're right. You really did misjudge us."

* * *

Kyle watched as Tess paced back and forth across the floor of her room. She was wearing loose flannel pajamas, a pair he hadn't seen her wear in several months. She had her back to him, and her eyes were trained on the carpet. She seemed to be lost in some other problem, caught up in her own thoughts. 

"Are you going to say something, or just stand there and stare?" Tess asked at last, raising her gaze to meet Kyle's eyes.

Kyle flushed and stepped into the room. "What wrong?" he asked.

Tess inhaled sharply, wondering how she would ever explain that. Right now, too many things were wrong, and none of them were things she could share with Kyle or Jim. Her so-called family, and she kept so much hidden from them. So many secrets.

"I got into a disagreement with Isabel today," Tess said finally, closing her eyes and listening to the wind rattling against the windowpane. Behind her, the sun was setting, turning the sky a fiery orange.

"Yes, I know," Kyle replied dryly. He hesitated, then added, "She called me, by the way."

"Isabel?" That surprised Tess, and she frowned slightly at Kyle.

"Yeah," Kyle replied. "Earlier this afternoon. She wanted to make sure that you hadn't completely disappeared off the face of the planet." He hesitated, then added cautiously, "She didn't want to talk to you, though. She sounded… upset."

Tess shrugged. "Yeah…"

Kyle swallowed nervously. He couldn't think of anything else to say about Isabel, and Tess clearly didn't want to talk about why she was upset, so he changed the subject.

"I saw Liz and Max at school today."

"Good for you," Tess drawled in a bored voice.

"I didn't feel any jealousy that they were dating. I mean… I'm not even mad at Liz anymore for the way she broke it off with me. I think I'm really over her."

"Not that I'm not supportive of this long over-due development, but why are you telling me?" Tess asked, confused. She was more than a little thrilled that her brother was no longer hurt by what he believed had happened, especially since it was Tess' fault that everything thought Liz had cheated on Kyle. Even now, she felt guilty about the amount of pain it caused him to believe that Liz could do something like that.

"Well… I mean, I know Trudy and Jason are dating, and I… I don't want to break them up, but I want to tell Trudy that…" Kyle drifted off, not entirely sure how to finish the sentence.

"That you're ready to start dating her?" Tess asked suspiciously. "It doesn't work like that, Kyle. She's with Jason and…"

"I know, and I don't want to break them up," Kyle defended himself. At Tess' disbelieving stare, he corrected the previous statement, "I don't want to do anything to upset Trudy even more. But I do want her to know that I… well, if things don't work out between her and Jason…"

"Just be her friend right now, Kyle. Be nice to her. And to Jason. Show her you care. But don't tell her that you want to date her, because that will just get her to think that you're trying to break them up," Tess advised.

"Okay," Kyle said. He wasn't wild about the idea of being friendly to both Trudy and Jason, but he'd messed up that situation enough that he was willing to do whatever Tess suggested if there was a chance it would fix things. "Um… thanks."

He turned to go, and Tess resumed her pacing. Pausing at the door, he glanced back at her, wanting to say something, wanting to offer some comfort or advice, but not knowing what it would be.

Tess, however, saved him the trouble of coming up with something to say. She looked at him solemnly for a moment, as though trying to make up her mind about something, then said, "I lied to you."

"About what?" Kyle questioned, surprised by the comment.

"A while ago. You asked me if I remembered any memory where we had been fighting over hamburger. And I said no." Tess paused, then added, "That was a lie."

Kyle stared at her, blinking. For a moment, the room was completely silent, save for the slow inhale and exhale of their breathes. The heavy quiet that fell over them was charged with something, some strange meaning, and Kyle knew that somehow this was important to Tess.

"I know," he said at last. Tess gave him a blank look, and he explained, "When I asked you the question, you denied knowing about the dream I had. But you also mentioned something about me having to eat pasta… a part of the dream I didn't tell you about. I knew you were lying then."

Tess bit her bottom lip contemplatively, trying to understand. She'd slipped up and revealed something to Kyle that she had wanted so much to keep a secret, but he hadn't even called her on it. She was partially relieved, and partially… well, mostly just confused.

"Tess, I don't know why you remember that memory. I don't know why I dreamt about it. I don't know why it is important to you. But I do know that it wasn't something you wanted to talk about, and I… Well, it didn't seem important enough to press the issue."

Tess nodded. Her expression was unreadable. Finally, she muttered, "I'm sorry I lied to you."

"That's alright," Kyle said, waving away her apology. He considered her contemplatively for a moment, then added, "There are a lot of things I've never really pushed for answers on, Tess." He walked over to her desk and pulled open the drawer, sifting through the contents until he found what he was looking for. Pulling out the picture of Tess, Max, Michael, and Isabel, he stared at it for a moment, then showed it to Tess. "Remember when I confronted you about this? When I asked you if you knew what was going on with the cases Dad was working on? When I asked whose side you were on?"

Tess nodded mutely.

"I know that you were friends with them once, and that it is important to you to remember that because you keep this picture. But you don't want other people to know, so you keep it hidden. I know that you have more of an understanding about what Dad is investigating right now than most of his deputies do, and that you're somehow invested in it. And I know that, for whatever reason, you want to keep that a secret. I know that there is more to your past with the Hardings than you let on, and that whatever it is, it scares the hell out of you."

"But you never told anyone," Tess murmured softly. "Not even Jim."

"When I confronted you about this, I asked you whose side you were on. The thing is, I don't have to ask that. I _know_. I know you would never do anything to hurt Dad or I. If you don't want to talk about it, then you don't have to talk. I'll trust that you have a good reason for wanting this to be kept quiet. I trust you."

He turned and left the room, letting the door swing shut behind him. Tess walked over to the bed and sank onto it, feeling the mattress give slightly under her weight. She stared at the door unseeingly, trying to comprehend.

Kyle knew so much and so little at the same time. He knew her, he was able to read her expression and her moods well enough to see when things were really wrong. And yet, even with all his knowledge of her, she'd still managed to trick him, time and again. He knew something was going on, but had no idea what it was, and didn't seem to think it was anything for him to worry about.

_I trust you_, he had said. Tess turned away, and wondered whether or not she even trusted herself.

* * *

"How was your dinner with Sean and Liz?" Amy asked as Maria stepped into the house. She was sitting on the sofa, a book open on her lap. Her expression was cautious, almost guarded, and something about her tone of voice instantly raised red flags in Maria's mind. 

"It was nice," she replied. "Liz and Sean get along really well. He likes molecular biology, and Liz was happy to be able to explain her dreams to someone who actually knows what mitochondria are." She closed the door sharply behind her, a little louder than she meant to, and walked to the chair across from her mother. "How was your evening?" She would have stayed to keep her mother company, but she'd already made plans with Sean and Liz, and Amy had insisted that she would be fine on her own for a little while.

"It was nice. I did some reading," Amy replied. "It's a relief to be in the land of the conscious now." Maria gave a slight smile at that, she too was happy that her mother was no longer in a coma. Still, she couldn't help but worry that there was something going on between Sean and her mother, and she wasn't sure what it was, or if she even wanted to know. Her mother had been more hesitant to speak about Sean lately, as though she was afraid something might happen if she did.

"Have you talked to Sean at all?" Maria asked, deciding to press the topic just a little. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe she was being paranoid. Maybe…

"Not really. But I guess I'll have to talk to him now. He… well, I'm awake so he doesn't have to stay here anymore," Amy said carefully.

"Maybe he wants to," Maria answered instantly, giving her mother a suspicious look. Why was Amy so eager to get rid of Sean?

"He has a life on the other side of the country, Maria. He has a job and friends. He might want to get back to that," Amy countered.

Maria pursed her lips together and asked, "Has he told you this? Because he's told me that he wants to be a part of my life."

"Do you want him to be a part of your life?" Amy asked, wondering if she wanted Maria to say yes or no. She knew that her daughter missed having a father, and Sean had been so incredibly good to Maria while Amy was still in the hospital. But there was just something about him… something not quite right. She didn't know what it was, but he had changed. He wasn't the Sean she remembered, and she had a feeling that it wasn't only their time apart that had changed him.

"Why not?" Maria asked. "He's not a bad person, Mom. He didn't walk out on us the way you lead me to believe." She couldn't keep the accusation out of her voice, and Amy flinched. Maria stood up and said quickly, "I'm sorry. I know that his presence only complicates things, and I don't want to do that to you. Especially since you're dating Jim now. But I've never had a father before. And… I kind of like having one."

"It's not that I'm worried about him complicating things with Jim," Amy said quickly, reaching up to catch Maria's hand as the teenager tried to move past her. "Or that I'm afraid of anything him being here would do to me. He's different now, Maria. I can't explain it, but he's not who I thought he was. And I don't want you to get hurt."

Maria pulled her hand out of her mother's grip and said softly, "You almost died, and I thought the world was going to end. I don't know how to do this, how to be a part of this world if you aren't in it. And then, when I learned the truth about my real father, it was as though everything I ever thought I knew about myself was turned on it's side and torn apart. I've already been hurt, but Sean's helped me with that. With all of this. I wouldn't have been strong enough to do it on my own."

"You were always strong enough," Amy whispered, forcing a smile.

Maria stepped back. "Why don't you like him anymore, Mom?" she asked. "What's changed about him."

Amy didn't know how to answer that question. How could she put into words something that she herself didn't understand? It was a strange sensation, something clenching in her stomach when she saw Sean, something buzzing in her mind, warning her about a threat she just didn't comprehend. "Just be careful, okay?" she said at last.

Maria nodded. "Always."

* * *

"Do you want to go out to dinner tomorrow night? Like… at the Crashdown?" 

Alex glanced up in shock as Isabel sat down next to him on the bench. He'd been staring at the stars, thinking about everything that had happened, and wondering when his life had gotten so complicated. He hadn't heard her approach, but then there she was, slipping next to him with a smile and a question.

"Um… sure," Alex replied. "Should I invite Liz and Maria also? Is this like a… Czechoslovakian meeting?"

Isabel flushed red and shook her head wordlessly. After a moment, she forced herself to say, "No… I meant as a date."

Alex was instantly flustered. He tried to nod and speak but nothing happened. He couldn't quite get his brain to connect with the rest of his body, and the only thing he could think of was that Isabel Evans had just asked him out on a date.

"Alex…?" Isabel shivered slightly in the cool night air, worried about his silence. Misinterpreting it as apprehension, she said quickly, "I told Trudy, Sara, and Jessica that I liked you. If you needed to hear that before you say yes…"

Alex shook his head. "I would have said yes anyway," he admitted slowly, finding his voice again. "How did they take it?"

Isabel tried to think of an answer to that question. In all honesty, she wasn't entirely sure if she was still friends with that group. She couldn't help but wonder about what Trudy had said. Yes, the entire school thought these girls were snobs, but hadn't they been good friends to her in the past few weeks? Was she really willing to just give up on them? Or where they in fact too far past redemption for her to even bother with it?

"I don't know," she said at last. "I guess we'll see." Then she added, "What time tomorrow?"

"Six-thirty?" Alex suggested. Isabel nodded, and he smiled at her, watching the way the moonlight fell across her features. The sun had only just finished sliding beyond the horizon, so the night sky was still a lighter indigo blue instead of the inky black, and not all the stars were visible yet. The moon was partially obscured by a few wayward clouds that had drifted through the otherwise clear sky.

"That sounds good," Isabel agreed. She stared down at the ground for a moment, unsure of what else to say in the awkward silence. Finally, she asked, "So… what are you doing?"

"Just looking at the stars," Alex admitted sheepishly. "They still amaze me, you know. Even though I'm not a kid anymore, and I know that they aren't magical lights that have been painted on a black canvas."

Isabel laughed. "I used to think they were little bits of shiny metal that had gotten trapped in the sky." She smiled at that memory. Michael had been quick to disabuse her of that notion. He had taken great pleasure in squashing her dreams by informing her that stars were nothing more than suns, just really far away. Needless to say, she had been devastated by the truth, and had refused to talk to Michael for several weeks.

She'd been eight, and the stars had captivated her then.

Now, whenever she looked at them, all she could think about was that somewhere, on some planet circling some distant star, there might be other people like her.

"I think the truth is even more remarkable," Alex replied thoughtfully. "They're lights. Giant balls of fire that sustain other life-forms. We know so little about what is out there, but there has to be something, right? It's infinitely large, so the possibilities are endless."

"You don't have to think about that if you want to know if there is other life out there, Alex," Isabel pointed out dryly. "You can just look at the girl sitting next to you."

Alex smiled at that and gave a brief nod. He stared at Isabel for a moment, then questioned, "What do you think of, when you look at the stars?"

"Everything and nothing," Isabel said softly. "I know Michael and Tess wonder if our home is up there. And Max always wonders if maybe all the answers to his questions could be found in the stars, if we just knew where to look. But… I don't know. The stars aren't home. This is the only home I've ever known, and I… I can't help but think that if we really did have a home out there, we wouldn't have been sent away."

"Maybe your family didn't have a choice," Alex said gently. "Maybe there was nothing left for you there."

Isabel sighed and shook her head. "It doesn't even seem real. I know that something's out there, but what?" She looked up at the stars again. "The Greeks used to think that each constellation was a real person or animal that had been placed in the sky. The stars were part of people's souls. A lot of Native Americans believed that also."

"You know, in a way, they kind of are," Alex replied. Isabel gave him a confused look, and he explained, "Each star is a sun. And some of those stars have worlds that circle the sun. And maybe those worlds have people on them. But we can't seen the planets, and we can't see the people. All we can see are the stars, and so those stars represent everything we can't see."

"Very philosophical," Isabel murmured.

Alex grinned. Then he changed the subject and asked, "Have you spoken to Max or Michael? I heard from Maria and Liz that they both had interesting nights last night."

"Yeah," Isabel said with a frown. "Max said he needed to talk to me about something tonight or tomorrow. Michael didn't mention anything. And I've been kind of preoccupied with…" She stopped abruptly and sighed.

"Tess?" Alex finished the sentence for her.

"Yeah," Isabel agreed. "I don't even know why this is bothering me so much. I just… I couldn't let it go." She didn't elaborate on what 'it' was, and Alex didn't ask. Finally, she continued, "And now I don't even know what to think about Tess anymore."

"Maybe you should talk to her again," Alex suggested.

Isabel had to stop herself from laughing outright at that comment. "Because it went so well when I talked to her before?" she countered.

Alex hesitated, then said, "Look, I don't know Tess that well. And the little that I do know about her… well, she isn't my favorite person. But I know that she loves you, Max, and Michael. So whatever the problem is, you can work it out."

If Tess had mind-warped Jim into adopting her so that she would be able to stay in Roswell, chances were she had done that so she could stay close to the other three aliens. So it wasn't that Isabel was worried that Tess didn't care about the three of them. It was that now she wasn't sure if Tess cared about anyone else.

Including Jim and Kyle.

But that didn't make any sense. Tess was protective of her adopted father and brother, and Isabel couldn't figure out why. But the anger that flared up when Liz accused Kyle or reading her diary, or they way Tess had come to the hospital and stayed with Jim when Amy had first been admitted… Wasn't that real? Or had it all been an act?

She needed to talk to Tess. She just had no idea what she was actually going to say.

Isabel shivered again, it was getting cooler. Alex noted that, and carefully reach up, very hesitantly wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Instead of pulling away, she leaned towards him, placing her head on his shoulder. He tightened his arms slightly, trying to keep her warmer, and the two of them stared up at the stars.

"You know, the one thing that I've always thought about the stars… no matter what they actually are or why they're there… they are beautiful," Isabel murmured.

Alex glanced down at her and smiled. "Yes," he said, still looking at her. "Beautiful."

* * *

Next Chapter: Truth and Loss 

Due: Sun 6/10


	78. Truth and Loss

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: As a reminder, Maria hasn't told that many people that Sean isn't her father. Only Liz, Alex, and Michael know the truth.

* * *

Chapter Seventy-Seven: Truth and Loss

Max knocked at the door of Michael's apartment, and waited patiently for a response. It had been a stressful day at school. Isabel had clearly been upset about something, which he thought might have to do with the previous' day's argument with Tess, but she wouldn't talk to him about it. She was avoiding all of her friends, including him and Michael, and it appeared as though Alex was the only one she would spend any time with.

And now he had to talk to Michael. Or, at least, try to talk to Michael.

A moment later, the door swung open, and Max found himself face-to-face with a glowering Michael.

"What do you want?" Michael demanded angrily, his face darkening at the sight of Max.

"To apologize," Max said swiftly, hoping that Michael would at least give him a chance to talk. Michael hesitated, clearly not knowing what to say to Max's answer, and Max pushed forward, "For being insensitive. I'm sorry."

"But not for telling me what to do?" Michael asked bitterly.

"For being concerned about our safety? For wanting to keep all of us out of our enemies' hands? No, I'm not sorry for that," Max said simply.

Michael looked as though he wanted to say something, but wasn't sure what it was. Finally, he said quietly, "You were right about Nick Latcher being a threat."

"Oh?"

Michael opened the door further and allowed Max into the room. Once the door was firmly closed behind him, he explained, "Maria and I broke into his hotel room two nights ago. He was working with the FBI. Well, sort…" He half-expected Max to interrupt with some long-winded lecture about how he shouldn't have put himself in danger by breaking into the reporter's room, and he shouldn't have taken Maria with him.

But Max just gestured for him to continue the explanation.

"He made a deal with this guy. This… Agent Pierce. Because he wanted to know what had happened to Ms. DeLuca's doctor. But he sent all this information to Ms. DeLuca's wife… just in case the FBI decided he was too problematic and tried to get rid of him."

"What sort of information?" Max pressed, worried.

"He knows that we're involved in something," Michael said solemnly. "He just doesn't know what exactly it is. Maria sent the email to herself so that we can look at it later, and then she erased it from the computer. So Valenti's deputies won't find it."

"Smart thinking," Max murmured, wondering vaguely why Maria was so good at snooping through other people's houses. Still, he didn't have time to dwell on that thought, he had other things to worry about. "I'll want to see that email soon," he said.

Michael nodded. "Yeah…" His face fell into a pensive expression, and he looked away for a moment, lost in his thoughts.

"Michael?" Max asked, noting the way the other alien seemed to be troubled by something. "Is everything okay between you and Maria?" He could tell by the way Michael stiffened, almost imperceptively, that he'd hit the topic. Something wasn't okay between the two.

Michael gave Max a scrutinizing stare, then said, "I like her."

Max opened his mouth to say something, then closed it abruptly. He regarded Michael as though the other teenager had gone insane, and said dryly, "Generally that's a good thing. Since you are dating and all…"

Michael rolled his eyes and glared at Max, then sighed and said, "Jason Drake is dead. So are both the Hardings. James Atherton. Deputy Hannigan. Nick Latcher. Hank, also… And God only knows what happened to Ms. Topolski. Because of us."

"It's not our fault," Max said instantly, although he wasn't sure he actually believed his own words. Attempting to muster up a convincing tone, he added, "We didn't know we were putting them in danger. And we couldn't have saved any of them."

"But they're still dead," Michael repeated. It was what Nick had said, when he'd spoken to the reporter. Everyone who ever associated themselves with the four aliens was walking into danger. And they didn't even know it, they couldn't defend themselves against a threat they didn't realize was there. "What if the next one is Maria? Liz? Alex?"

Max nodded sympathetically, understanding why Michael was upset, why he was having problems with Maria. After all, hadn't he often had these own worries about Liz? He dragged her into this entire mess, and she could end up dead because of it.

A tiny little voice reminded him that she would have been killed by that bullet if he _hadn't_ healed her, but… If anything happened to Maria and Alex, he doubted Liz would be thankful that he healed her. Because it had pulled her two best friends into this as well, and put them in grave danger. He knew Liz well enough to know she would rather die than let anything happen to her friends.

"It won't," Max said, and again, he didn't believe his words. "We can protect them."

"Can we protect everyone else?" Michael asked. He frowned, rubbing the back of his head absently. "Dr. Drake, the Hardings, Hank… they were all killed not because they were involved in this, but because no one ever told them that they might be in danger. They didn't know, and it was not knowing that brought about their deaths. There are other people who don't know either. Other people who could get hurt. Like… your parents."

It took all of Max's self-control to keep the hot bubbling guilt and panic at bay. A bitter taste rose in his mouth at Michael's words, and he forced himself to look down at his hands and count slowly to ten until he was calm again.

His parents. The people who had taken him into their home, protected him, loved him unconditionally. If anything happened to them…

"I guess I just… I understand why you're such a paranoid control-freak," Michael said, cutting through Max's thoughts. "Why you're worried about taking risks."

Max decided that at this point it would be better to accept Michael's statement instead of argue that he wasn't a control-freak. "Well, I also understand that sometimes we all do things without thinking," he said, hoping his words didn't sound to arrogant. "I started looking through some of Brody's belongings. Things I shouldn't have looked at. And… I got caught."

"What happened?" Michael asked, struggling to hold back the smile that threatened to appear on his face.

"Brody thinks I've been abducted by aliens in the past," Max deadpanned.

Michael stared at him blankly, and then realized that Max wasn't actually kidding. "Wait, seriously?" he asked, his mouth falling open.

Then he started laughing. A moment later, Max joined in, the previous argument temporarily forgotten.

* * *

The Crashdown was packed with students, as usual. Looking around, Liz wondered if anyone at Roswell High School ever actually did anything in the afternoon besides eat at her parents' diner. If Maria didn't show up for her shift soon, there was no way she'd be able to handle this all by herself. 

"Hey, do you know if everything's okay with Isabel?" Liz asked, stopping next to Alex's booth and handing him a glass of water. "She was acting funny at school today. She completely avoided her friends, and wouldn't talk to Michael or Max."

Alex took the glass and nodded. "Yeah, she got into a fight with them. I think it's going to be okay, though…" He let the sentence trail off, not entirely sure if things were going to work out. He trusted that Isabel would at least try to fix the problem with Tess, and if Tess accepted her again, the others would as well.

Inside, of course, he was leaping for joy over the fact that Isabel still wanted to go out with him, even though her friends didn't seem to like it. But he didn't want to say that out loud.

"That's good," Liz said. She pulled out her waitress pad and, pushing absently at the antenna headband, asked, "Do you want anything to eat?"

"Saturn Rings, please," Alex replied with a grin. He watched the two Styrofoam balls on the ends of the antenna's bounced back and forth as Liz wrote down his order. It really was a ridiculous outfit.

"Anything else?" Liz asked.

"No, I'm coming back later tonight with Isabel," Alex said casually, looking down at his water and keeping his eyes off of Liz.

"Okay, Saturn Rings it is…" Liz stopped abruptly and looked at him. "Wait, what?"

"Isabel and I have a date this afternoon," Alex replied with a nonchalant shrug, looking up at Liz.

Her mouth fell open.

Forgetting the fact that the diner was full of patrons she was supposed to serve, forgetting that Maria wasn't there to help out, forgetting that she needed to take Alex's order back to the kitchen, she leaned forward and demanded, "When did this happen? Start at the beginning, keep going until you reach the end, and don't leave out any details. Did you ask her? Did she ask you? What was it like?"

"You really are a hopeless romantic, aren't you?" Alex laughed. He was about to explain exactly how Isabel had found him on the bench at the park, when Maria suddenly pushed her way over to his booth and threw herself down on the padded seats in a huff.

"You're late," Liz said, snapping back into reality. "There's a million people here, and Alex and Isabel are going on a date later tonight…" She trailed off as she caught sight of Maria's slumped shoulders and downcast eyes. "What's wrong?" she asked instantly, fearing the worst. Had something happened to Maria's mother? Michael or Max?

"I don't think my Mom likes Sean," Maria said slowly. "She wants him to leave. She says he's different, he's changed somehow. She doesn't completely trust him, I don't think. Just when I actually get a father figure, she goes and… decides not to like him."

Alex reached out and squeezed her hand, sharing a look with Liz. Neither were entirely sure what to say. Why would Amy suddenly decide that she didn't like Sean anymore?

* * *

Max parked his car outside of the UFO Center and climbed slowly out. He'd told Brody he'd drop by to finish up some of the set up this afternoon. They were almost ready to open up to the public, and he found he was actually somewhat excited about that. 

He hadn't seen Brody since their previous encounter, and he wasn't really sure how the Center owner would act around him now. He hoped that Brody would be less suspicious and open up more. Maybe that way he could actually learn something useful.

Contemplating the possibility of that happening, he didn't hear the set of footsteps approach until the person was standing right in front of him. He looked up with a start, and found himself staring at a man he had never seen before. The man was tall and blonde, with pale skin and a scattering of freckles. His hair was cut fairly long, falling just below his ears.

But it was the yellow eyes that caught Max's attention.

The chill started in his stomach, then crept up his spine. "Nasedo," he said. It wasn't a question, he knew exactly who this man was, even if he was in a different form.

"Good afternoon, your Majesty," Nasedo said with a smile. The fact that the King could sense his presence even though he was in a different guise was a good sign. It meant his powers… _gifts_, he corrected himself with a sneer… were growing.

"What are you doing here?" Max asked. "I don't need you." Nasedo was only supposed to show up if he was needed. It wouldn't do for Max to have alien-related meetings with a shape-shifter in broad daylight unless it was an emergency.

"Don't you?" Nasedo countered. "You have questions. Perhaps I have answers."

Max pondered the cryptic comment, trying to decipher its meaning. There was really only one thing he had questions about, but right now, he wasn't sure that he wanted to know the answer.

Still…

He had to ask, didn't he? He had to know.

"Did you kill Nick Latcher?"

Nasedo nodded. "He was a threat," he said simply. "I removed the threat."

"You can't just kill people," Max hissed, lowering his voice. He glanced around nervously to make sure no one was listening to the conversation, then added, "It's murder."

"It's a war, your Majesty," Nasedo scoffed. "It's kill or be killed. Them or us. And I say us."

"You aren't one of us," Max countered before he could stop himself.

"No," Nasedo agreed, "I'm not." He didn't seem even the least bit offended by the remark. Instead, he shrugged and added, "But I am your best chance at survival. Do you really want to throw that away by refusing to work with me?"

"How can we trust you?" Max whispered, horrified that this man could so callously talk of killing others. And yet… if it was kill or be killed… well, he didn't want to die.

He mentally chastised himself for even thinking those thoughts. He wasn't going to kill anyone, and he couldn't work with someone who did.

"Trust that I don't want you dead. Which is more than I can say for your FBI friends. Or for your alien enemies." Nasedo shook his head in scorn. "I can help you. Train you to control your gifts. I can make you stronger. And you're going to need that strength."

"We are strong," Max said firmly.

Nasedo paused, mulling over this remark. Then, choosing his words carefully, he replied, "Yes, you are strong. It is not the strength that is lacking, it is the control. And you need to learn that control, or you will have no hope."

Max stepped backward and shook his head, pushing away the other alien's words. They didn't need the help of a murderer… did they? "We have control," he said, spitting out the words. Then he turned to leave, hurrying towards the door to the UFO Center.

The shape-shifter, however, was faster, and cut in front of Max, baring his path. "Ask Tess if you really have control," he said in a low voice, his lips parting into a thin smile. "Ask her if she trusts all of you with your powers." He held Max's gaze for another beat, then stepped aside, and allowed Max to pass.

He watched slowly as the King disappeared into the UFO Center. Folding his arms over his chest, he allowed himself a brief moment of triumph. Their enemies were getting closer, and the stakes were being raised, but he was so close. Soon the others would trust him, and then he would be able to achieve his final goal.

All he needed was the Royal Four to support him, trust him, depend on him. With their strength and his own cunning, their enemies did not stand a chance.

He walked away, pleased with the day's accomplishments.

He had no way of knowing how soon all that would change. But fate had a funny way of stepping in and ruining even the best laid plans.

* * *

Isabel knocked on the bedroom door then stepped inside without waiting for an answer. Tess glanced up from where she was sitting on the bed, reading a book, and gave Isabel a confused and suspicious stare. 

"We need to talk," Isabel said quietly, and Tess closed her book. The smaller girl didn't say anything, and Isabel fidgeted, shaking her head slowly and glancing from Tess to the floor. She didn't really know how to start the conversation, she had no idea what she even wanted to say, but Tess wasn't about to make it an easier for her.

Deciding that the direct approach was probably the best, Isabel said, "Why? Why did you mind-warp Valenti?"

Tess' features twisted into a mocking expression as she replied, "I thought you had already figured out everything. Why are you asking questions now?"

"Because I want to understand," Isabel said. "I was too… hasty… in my judgments before." At least, she prayed that she was too hasty, that there was more to this than met the eye, that Tess hadn't just manipulated the circumstances to fit her own needs.

Tess shook her head. "I told you to leave it alone, Isabel," she said softly, almost sadly. "You just couldn't stay away from it."

"Neither could you," Isabel pointed out, venturing a bit further into the room and taking a seat across from Tess on the bed. When Tess didn't order Isabel to leave, the other girl let out a sigh of relief and added, "You kept going back to that dream. Over and over and over again. Why?"

Tess ran a hand through her hair, pulling absently at one of her curls. "I don't know," she admitted, and Isabel knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Tess was telling the truth. "I can't explain why it was important to me, anymore than you could explain why getting the answers was important to you. It just… was."

"What answer were you looking for in that memory?" Isabel asked.

Tess gave Isabel a look, and Isabel had the strangest sensation that Tess was searching for something… or maybe for something to _not_ be there. "I didn't orchestrate coming to Roswell. I wasn't responsible for Jim taking me in after Andrew and Jessica died… and I certainly had nothing to do with their deaths."

"I never thought you did," Isabel said swiftly. "And I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that I was implying anything like that."

Tess waved the apology away and continued, "I don't know why it happened like that. I don't know why Andrew and Jessica had to die, why Jim happened to be such good friends with Andrew, why he felt the need to keep me out of the Los Angeles foster care system. It seems like too much of a coincidence, and I don't believe in those anymore." She picked at the interlocking fibers in the quilt that was pulled across the top of her bed. "When it all happened, it was like someone had pulled a rug out from underneath my feet and the world had been tipped on its axis. I had to hold tight to something to keep from flying out into space and being lost… and then I found the three of you. And Jim who at least appeared to… well, sort-of care about me. And I thought things might be okay."

Isabel held her breath. She couldn't ever remember Tess being this open with her feelings or her past. She knew that, on occasion, Max and Tess would have heart-to-hearts about what was going on in their lives and how to fix the problems. But Tess rarely opened up to her or Michael, and this was a side of the other girl she hadn't seen in a long time.

"But Kyle didn't like having me here. He didn't like anything about me, and I was afraid that he would convince his father to send me away. So, that day that we had the argument about the pasta and hamburger, I… I started praying. I closed my eyes tightly and wished as hard as I could that Jim and Kyle would like me enough to let me stay. I'd prayed before in the past, but this time something felt different. Something inside of me…" She stopped, but Isabel knew what she was saying.

"You didn't realize you were mind-warping him, did you?" she breathed.

Tess shook her head. "I'd never mind-warped anyone before. I didn't even know I had that gift. Then, the next thing I know, Jim's decided to apply for adoption. That was when I figured out what I had done. What I was capable of."

"It wasn't your fault."

Tess laughed softly, ironically. "I lost control. I've been here nine years, Izzy. I've been part of this family for nine years, and I don't know if that's because they wanted me or because I made them want me. I have no way of knowing if Kyle and Jim would care about me if I _hadn't_ manipulated them."

She stood up slowly, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and walking to the window. Leaning against the wall, she let her gaze wander towards the sky. Isabel watched her in silence, almost afraid to speak.

It made sense, she reflected. Tess' overly-protective behavior when it came to her brother and father, her anger at having to mind-warp Jim. It wasn't, as Isabel had always assumed, just another way for Tess to be angry with the other three aliens. It was guilt, for what she had accidentally done in the past, for the knowledge that she had taken away their free will and forced them into accepting her.

Tess turned suddenly, sharply, and gave Isabel a hard stare. "My gifts have grown now. They're stronger, and I think I have more control over them now, but I… I don't know."

"All our gifts have grown," Isabel countered.

"Yours don't hurt people, Izzy," Tess said emphatically, and Isabel registered the fact that Tess had repeatedly used her nickname, something she rarely did. "They invade people's privacy, but overly dream-walking someone isn't going to kill them," Tess continued. "I mess with people's minds. Too much, and I can destroy everything. Do you know what it is like to constantly fear that if you accidentally wish for something too hard you might end up damaging someone's brain?"

Isabel didn't answer the question, instead she said, "I'm sorry about what I said to you before. I was… too hasty. I misjudged… everything."

"Yeah, you've been doing that a lot lately," Tess said sharply. At Isabel's questioning look, she said, "Trudy mentioned something to me about an argument the two of you had."

Isabel nodded.

"I don't know what to tell you, Izzy," Tess murmured. "Either you accept us as your friends or you don't."

"Wanting to date Alex makes it more complicated," Isabel defended herself with a frown. She wasn't about to let Tess turn her into the villain in this part of the conversation. Maybe she was too hasty in what she said to Trudy, but that didn't mean she didn't have a valid point.

Tess, however, waved aside Isabel's words. "It shouldn't," she said resolutely. Before Isabel had the opportunity to retort, she added, "If you start dating Alex, we will still be exactly the same people we were before you started dating. You knew how Sara and Jessica would react to your announcement all along. You know the type of people we are. Either you like us or you don't."

"It isn't that simple!" Isabel protested.

Tess raised an eyebrow. "So you didn't have a problem being friends with us when we were less than nice to Liz, but Alex is a different story? Why? Because you like him, but Liz is less important? Either you can live with the type of people we are, or you can't."

"Alex is going to expect me to stand up for him," Isabel pointed out. Liz never really expected that from her.

Did she?

"Of course he is. Like Liz expected Kyle to stand up for her. Which, I might add, he did. On numerous occasions." Tess paused long enough to fondly remember those arguments with her adopted brother, but then pushed the memory away. It was hard to think about that right now, hard to think about anything related to Jim and Kyle and not feel guilty. "Do you want to be our friend, or not?. It's your choice, Isabel, not ours."

* * *

Despite the somewhat thought-provoking conversation with Tess, Isabel found herself still able to enjoy the date with Alex. They'd agreed to meet at six-thirty, so at five o'clock, she was already standing in her room, staring at her reflection in the mirror, and wondering what she was supposed to wear. At six, she was doing her make-up, and at six-fifteen, she was bullying Max into driving her to the Crashdown. If everything went well, it wouldn't be too difficult to get Alex to drive her home… 

So six-thirty found her stepping into the diner and beaming at Alex, who was chatting easily with Liz about something. He turned and stared at her, and she felt her face flush bright red. Alex appeared at a loss for words as he took in her simple, yet stunning, outfit.

Finally, Liz pushed him lightly in the ribs, gesturing for him to go talk to Isabel, and then slipped away.

"You look very nice," Alex said, and Isabel smiled.

"You do also," she replied, and the two took seats in one of the smaller booths near the front of the diner. Alex played with his napkin for a moment before noticing that Isabel's attention was drawn elsewhere. He turned and followed her gaze, and saw Liz standing near the counter, watching them critically.

"I have nosy friends," Alex apologized, glaring at Liz until she turned her gaze elsewhere.

Isabel stifled a laugh. "That's alright, I have a nosy family. I just can't wait to hear what Max is going to make of all this." She took a sip of water and rolled her eyes.

"He doesn't know yet?" Alex asked, surprised. If Isabel hadn't mentioned it to her brother, he would have at least thought that Liz would have told her boyfriend.

Isabel rolled her eyes again. "He and Michael had some sort of falling out… again. And so he's been off trying to fix that, and to solve some other… Czechoslovakian problems. I haven't really seen him much the past couple days."

"We could always not tell him," Alex suggested with a mischievous smile. "Just wait and see how long it is before he notices…?"

"Are you kidding?" Isabel laughed. "Max would blow a fuse if I don't tell him soon." Then she paused, and gave Alex an appraising glance. With a grin, she added, "That would be a little amusing."

"So," Liz said, approaching them with a breezy smile. "What would you like to eat?"

Alex narrowed his eyes at his best friend and said, "We're not sitting in your section, Liz. You're not our waitress." His pointed tone left no room for interpretation; it was clear he didn't want to deal with Liz spying on him during the date.

Liz said airily, "Well, this section is crowded and sometimes the other waitresses don't always cover everyone. I figured I'd just pick up some of the slack." She waved her hand at the diner, and Isabel looked around in amusement.

The place was practically empty.

"Nice cover story, Lizzie," Alex said softly. "Try again." Liz pouted, and he laughed and added, "Why don't you take a break and call Maria? See how she's doing?" When Liz didn't make a move to leave, he added tersely, "Now?"

"She went over to have dinner with Sean tonight," Liz answered triumphantly. "I can't call her."

"Well, then why don't you call Max? See how he's doing?" Alex said in frustration. Liz glowered at him, but Alex continued, "I'm sure Max would love to talk to you. More than Isabel and I do right now…" The brunette waitress slumped away, discouraged, and Alex stifled a laugh.

"What's wrong with Maria?" Isabel asked in concern as she ran her hand over the smooth ring of the top of the water glass.

Alex sighed and shook his head. "I guess Ms. DeLuca is a little concerned about Maria's… father. Sean. She says he's not the same person she remembers. But Maria's gotten really close to him lately so…" He trailed off at the strange look in Isabel's eyes. "You okay?"

Isabel nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine. I was just thinking about something else. That must be hard for Maria." She rested her chin on the palm of her hand, propping her elbow on the table.

"Yeah, I think it is," Alex agreed. Then, changing the subject, he commented, "Liz is still staring at us."

Isabel craned her neck to peer past Alex, and sure enough, Liz still had her brown eyes fixed on the couple. "Hey, at least Michael isn't working tonight. He'd probably have come charging out and demanded an explanation for our behavior or something."

"You're not allowed to date?" Alex asked with a bemused expression.

Isabel shrugged. "Not really. I mean, it's dangerous, you know." Then she frowned and added, "But Max has Liz, Michael has Maria, and Tess has Chris, so…" She laughed softly. "I guess we're not big on following the rules anymore."

"Have you spoken to Tess?" Alex asked, gently prying.

Isabel nodded. "Yeah, I think we've sort of worked through that… I hope." She twisted her napkin in her hand and then asked, "Why hasn't the other waitress come over to take our order?"

Alex scanned the room quickly, then said, "You know, I'm willing to bet Liz told her not to. So that we have to order from her."

"Hm… conniving and nosy. Nice friends you've got there," Isabel said dryly.

"You should have seen her this afternoon when I told her we had a date," Alex replied. "She and Maria are a little… over-involved in my life."

"Well, it just shows they care," Isabel said diplomatically. Then she muttered, "Although sometimes it's nice if they can co be caring somewhere else."

Liz was still watching them.

Isabel looked down at the table top, then up into Alex's eyes. She opened her mouth to say something, but stopped as a strange sensation swept through her, a sense of foreboding. She hesitated, chewing her bottom lip, trying to understand what she felt.

"You okay?" Alex asked.

He'd asked her that just a moment ago, when she'd felt the same thing. And why? What had they been talking about?

"_What's wrong with Maria"_

"_I guess Ms. DeLuca is a little concerned about Maria's… father. Sean. She says he's not the same person she remembers. But Maria's gotten really close to him lately so…" _

"We have to go," Isabel said abruptly, dropping her fork to the plate and standing abruptly. Alex stared at her, confused, but she didn't explain. Instead, she asked urgently, "Do you have a car?"

"Yeah, it's…"

"Good. Come on," Isabel interrupted, pulling him to his feet and hurrying from the diner.

"Hey!" Liz called after the retreating couple. "You didn't pay the bill!"

Alex paused at the door to yell back, "We didn't order anything!"

* * *

Alex glanced at Isabel, torn between exasperation that she wouldn't explain herself and fear that something was terribly wrong. When she pulled the car into the parking lot next to an old motel, however, he blinked, too bewildered by this entire expedition to even bother asking what was going on. Isabel tossed him his car keys and jumped out, and he followed her. 

"This is it, right?" Isabel asked as they got to the entrance of the motel. "This is where Maria's father is staying?"

"Y-yes," Alex stuttered. He didn't ask how Isabel knew that.

Isabel continued towards the elevators, hitting the up button frantically. Alex reached out and caught her hand, trying to still her rapid movements, but she looked away from him. Once they were inside the elevator, Isabel gestured for Alex to take them to the right floor. He selected the button for the floor Sean was on, then leaned back and waited.

Was Maria in danger? He didn't know, but Isabel's frantic pacing was a sure sign that something was wrong. He would have pressed her for details, but if Maria or Sean actually were in danger, then asking questions would only serve to waste precious time.

He led Isabel down the hallway towards Maria's father's room. At the door, he raised his hand to know, but Isabel pushed him aside and used her gifts to unlock the door. It swung open, and she walked in briskly.

Maria and Sean were sitting at the table, eating dinner. Maria half rose from her chair as she caught sight of Isabel's flushed face and Alex's worried expression. Sean stood all the way up, moving to greet the two teenagers.

As Isabel stared at Sean, a million thoughts and memories rushed through her mind.

"_You may think it is nothing, but I know different. Something is happening. Something is wrong with Hannigan, and you…you're laughing at me. You don't believe me and I am scared out of my mind!"_

_The article that had stated that Hannigan was indeed dead… murdered…_

_The shape-shifter had called her on her cell phone. Alex also. Which meant, somehow, he would have had to get those phone numbers. He would have needed access to someone else, someone who trusted him, someone who was friendly with Alex and Isabel…_

_Amy thought Sean was different, something about him was off…_

_Michael had told them, over and over, that Sean just didn't rub him the right way. Something about the older man grated against his nerves… But she'd just assumed he was being paranoid or over protective._

_What had he said to her after she'd first witnessed Tess' dream? "As you get older, you learn to manage your gifts. But they get stronger as well, and sooner or later you're going to lose control once again. Be careful, Princess, or they'll find you. And trust me, you won't like where you end up."_

_So he would have had to be close by, close enough to observe everything that was happening, to figure out Tess' fears… To know that Michael was in danger from Hank… To learn about Nick, Dr. Drake… To remove the threat…_

_And who better to impersonate than someone none of them had ever met?_

All the clues had been right there, and they just hadn't paid attention.

She felt it, the same sensation when she saw Deputy Hannigan, when she knew it wasn't really him. The icy chill that was so cold it actually burned. The tremor, light and gentle, and so fleeting that she lost it just as soon as it appeared. The fear, the worry, the anxiety… the knowledge that everything was somehow completely and utterly wrong…

Without thinking of anything expect that this man had played them all for fools, lead them along like puppets, she raised her hand and let the burst of energy fly from her palm in a flash of white light. She heard both Maria and Alex screaming at her, but they sounded far away, as though someone had turned down the volume on the world. Nothing mattered anymore, nothing except protecting herself and the people she cared about from this man whom they never should have trusted in the first place.

Maria was already moving forward towards Sean, crying out for him to duck, to get out of the way…

And then Sean instinctively raised his hand and created a force-field, absorbing the energy of Isabel's attack.

The room was deathly silent.

For one long moment, time stood still, seeming to extend out towards eternity. Then, as the realization slowly settled over her, Maria felt her entire world crumble and come crashing down.

* * *

Next Chapter: Trust 

Due: Sun 6/17


	79. Trust

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Sorry this is so late, it ended up being a longer chapter than I had anticipated. And I kept trying to rewrite it to make it better. But I actually have the next chapter almost completely done, so I can post that on Sunday and get back to my regular schedule.

As always, please read and review.

* * *

Chapter Seventy-Eight: Trust

_Dear Amy,_

_This email is probably going to come as a surprise to you, but I feel like it needs to be done. There are things I need to say. First, I am sorry for any discomfort my presence here has caused you. I know it could not have been easy to have your husband around while you are trying to move on with your life. I was selfish for wanting to be around Maria, and I wasn't thinking about what was actually best for the two of you._

_Second, I am returning home today. If you ever need anything from me, you know how to get in contact, and Maria does to. I wish you all the joy in the world and a bright future with Jim. I wish it could have been me instead of him, but maybe it is best to just let the past stay in the past. More than anything, I want you to be happy. You deserve that._

_And lastly, in case you don't already know, you raised an amazing daughter. Whatever you've been doing for the past sixteen years, you must have done something right, because she turned out quite remarkable. It was an honor to get to know Maria, and to see you again, and I will always cherish the gift of these few weeks. I only wish our meeting could have been under better circumstances._

_Much love and wishes for a speedy recovery,_

_Sean_

Sean stared at the email he had written and sighed. His plans weren't quite working out, but he knew how to improvise. The first thing he had to do was make sure that this fiasco didn't spread out any further. Those who knew about the aliens would certainly be informed about him, but the others…

He had to cover his tracks. He had to disappear and make sure it didn't raise too many questions.

And then he could fix this, he could start over. He wasn't about to give up. Not now, not ever.

He knew so much more about war and survival than these teenage alien reincarnations. He would still win.

No matter what.

He sent the email, then stood up. He had work to do.

* * *

Everything was a blur. She didn't know how she had gotten here. She didn't even know where exactly here was. Somewhere in the desert, but everything looked the same to her, a rush of gold and yellow sand dotted with rocky outcroppings and cliffs. The sky above her was filled with red and orange light, like brush strokes on a canvas, as the sun started to rise slowly over the distant horizon.

How long had she been here?

How had she gotten here?

Where was here?

Isabel had yelled something at Sean, and Alex had tried to grab her hand. Somehow, during this confusion, Sean had shoved the alien girl to the ground, and Alex had started yelling at him, threatening him. But she didn't remember the details, couldn't figure out what exactly had happened. Somehow, she'd run from the room, running and running and running until she'd ended up here.

Where was here?

* * *

Max felt someone shaking him furiously, and slowly allowed the shaking to pull him from sleep. Opening his eyes, he blinked a few times and glanced curiously at the clock. It was early, only sunrise, and he didn't have to get up for another hour. Groaning, he blinked and turned toward the person shaking him.

One look at Isabel's pale face, and he was suddenly wide awake. She was staring at him, her eyes darkened by horror and fear, her skin clammy and glistening to sweat. She was breathing unevenly and twisting her fingers tightly around the blankets, anxious and worried.

"What happened? Izzy?" Max asked, throwing the blankets away from him and sitting up in bed. He pulled his sister down onto the cushion next to him and hugged her, feeling her shaking underneath his arms. What had happened?

"We found the shape-shifter, Max," Isabel said, her voice muffled slightly. He pulled away and looked up at her, confusion reflecting in his eyes.

"What do you mean?" Of course they found the shape-shifter. He'd come to see them before, revealed himself to Max.

"He's Maria's father," Isabel explained, crossing her arms over her chest and staring at a spot on the wall directly to the right of Max's head. As though if she didn't meet Max's eyes, then maybe she wouldn't have to be saying this, maybe it wouldn't be coming true. "All this time, he's just been… Michael felt that something was wrong about the guy, and we ignored him. Maria's mother also… she felt something different… he… He's just been manipulating us this entire time…"

Max felt something tighten around his heart. He was a fool to trust this man. How could he have ever thought that the shape-shifter was on their side? He knew the man had killed before, and he just conveniently overlooked that detail because he wanted answers. How could he have done that?

"Are you okay, Izzy? Did he hurt you? Or Maria?" He didn't ask how Isabel had discovered the truth about Maria's father, but he assumed there must have been some kind of confrontation. Why it had happened at this hour, so early in the morning, he had no idea. He just cared that his sister wasn't hurt.

"No…" Isabel let out a breath. "I'm okay."

Max sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, thinking. "He came to see me this afternoon, when I was on my way to Brody's…" he commented thoughtfully. "He was talking about training us… teaching us how to control our gifts. I told him we didn't need his help, but he said I should ask Tess if that was true. Ask her if she thought we had control…" He trailed off as Isabel recoiled from him. "Izzy?"

"Oh… _God_," Isabel whispered. "Tess… she's been having this dream about losing control… he did this to her, to me… made us want to know…" She wasn't making coherent sense, but that didn't matter. She understood now. Why Tess had kept coming back to the that memory, dreaming about her inability to control her gifts… Why Isabel herself had wanted so badly to know what the dream was, to understand, why she had felt it was important… The shape-shifter… Nasedo… he could dream-walk. He'd done it before, hadn't he? And he'd been able to control what she saw in her own dreams, so he could have done the same to Tess… make her not forget this…

"Isabel?"

"He played us, Max," Isabel explained at last. "He's been manipulating Tess' dreams, making her scared of losing control of her gifts. That's how he was going to get us to trust him… by making Tess terrified and then helping her get over it… He was going to do that to all of us…"

Max sighed. At least they knew the truth now. Better late than never.

Although possibly not for Maria…

"Isabel, you need to call Michael and tell him what happened. And call Tess as well. I'll call Liz." He hesitated, then asked cautiously, "Does Maria know?"

Isabel nodded. "She was there when he… used his gifts… She ran away though… I don't know where she went."

Max got up. "Maybe Liz can talk to her, try to help her deal with this." He rested a hand on Isabel's shoulder. "It's going to be okay, Izzy. He's not going to get away with doing this to us… or to Maria. I promise."

* * *

"She's not answering the her cell phone," Liz said in frustration, throwing her own phone onto the bed. Only a few minutes before, Max had appeared at her window and quickly relayed the entire story. She'd snatched up the phone, wanting to talk to Maria, needing to know that her friend was alright.

But Maria hadn't answered the phone.

And she knew that Maria wasn't alright.

She turned to Max, a helpless feeling bubbling up in her stomach, twisting her insides with guilt. "How could we have let this happen?" she whispered.

Max was wondering the same thing. Michael had warned them. Even Amy had noticed something was wrong. But they… they didn't do anything about it, and Maria had ended up suffering the consequences. His hands clenched into fists, his knuckles turning white as the hot anger flared inside of him. He would not let Nasedo get away with this.

"Where would she go?" Max asked finally. "Where would Maria run to?"

Liz closed her eyes, trying to imagine herself as her blonde friend. "She'd want to get away from it," Liz murmured. "She want to run." Opening her eyes, she looked at Max and shook her head. "She'd just run, Max. She wouldn't go anywhere in particular. She'd just… get away."

"To the desert?" Max frowned. He didn't like the idea of Maria wandering around the desert alone, especially not with Nasedo out there. Biting his lip, he said finally, "I'm going to have Isabel find her."

Liz blinked up at Max. She didn't understand, if no one knew where Maria was, how could Isabel find her. But then she saw the true meaning of Max's words reflected in his eyes. "You want Isabel to dream-walk her?" She knew instantly that Maria would oppose to the idea of having anyone enter her mind.

Max offered her a tight smile. "I know Maria wouldn't like it, but she could be in danger. We can't just leave her." He didn't like this either, but… He just didn't have a choice.

Besides, Isabel dream-walked people all the time. Not that he would ever mention that to Maria, but he was fairly certain Isabel had seen inside her dreams a few times.

"But Maria's not asleep. She's not dreaming," Liz protested.

"That's okay," Max replied. "Isabel's not actually going to get into Maria's mind. She's just going to try to locate Maria's mind, and she can do that even if Maria is awake." He paused thoughtfully, a worried expression playing across his features. He knew that Isabel would be able to find Maria, but would she do it? She was terrified of entering other people's dreams right now, for fear that she would end up stuck in her own again.

A dark look filled his eyes. He remembered what Isabel had said about Nasedo planning to use Tess' fears to gain her trust. Had he been planning to do the same to Isabel? Help her get over her fear of dream-walking and further ingrain himself into their lives?

At least he would not have the chance to do that now.

"Maria won't like it. And she just wants to be alone right now," Liz muttered under her breath. Maria had just discovered she'd been betrayed by someone she was learning to trust, and now Max wanted Isabel to invade her privacy? No, Maria would not like that at all.

Liz wasn't sure if that trumped Maria's need to have other people around. She simply wasn't sure how credible of a threat this shape-shifter was to Maria right now.

On the other hand, she didn't want to take any chances. Maybe Maria wouldn't like it. But at least she'd be safe.

"I know," Max said gently, placing a hand on Liz's shoulder. "And I don't want to do this anymore than you do. The last thing she needs right now is another person betraying her trust. But… we discovered things about Nasedo last night, Liz. About the sorts of plans he's made, what he's been trying to do. He's not to be trusted at all, and I'm not entirely sure that he won't go after Maria right now. Use her as leverage or bait."

Liz nodded, feeling the fear rise slowly within her, pumping through her veins. She needed to know that Maria was safe. She needed to know that her best friend was going to be okay. "Fine," she consented. "Find her."

Max reached for his cell phone and quickly dialed Isabel's number. He, too, was driven by the intense need to know that Maria was safe. But for him, that need was indistinguishably tied up in the need to know that he could protect this group, he could keep them safe.

It was his job, and he wasn't going to fail at it.

* * *

Michael almost put his fist through the wall.

He could hear Isabel on the other end of the phone, saying something, but it didn't make sense anymore. He'd stopped listening, stopped caring. The only thing he heard, the only thing that mattered, was that Sean was the shape-shifter. He'd played them all.

And Maria was missing.

It took all his self-control not to smash everything in his apartment, not to destroy the furniture, shatter the windows, rip apart the blankets and pillows on his bed. A whirlwind of anger was building up inside him, and he knew that any minute it could explode into a tornado of energy that would destroy this entire place.

That was the problem with having a gift that allowed him to blow-up objects. He might have more control over that particular gift than the other aliens, but he also knew that he had more power in that particular area as well. And if he lost control… things tended to disintegrate.

"Oh… Max is on the other line. I'll call you back if we know anything," Isabel said abruptly, hanging up. Michael was left to stare at the receiver clutched in his hand and imagine all the ways he could hurt this shape-shifter.

* * *

"You want me to what?" Isabel demanded angrily, hoping she had heard Max wrong.

"Izzy, I know you don't want to do this, I know you're scared. But we have to find Maria. She might be in danger, and right now you're the only one who can locate her in time." Max's voice was calm and reasoned, floating over the phone lines with an air of resignation.

"I… I… what if…?" Isabel trailed off, unsure what to say. She had to help Maria, she knew that. But how could she? How could she put herself in danger like that? She was too afraid, if she got lost in her own dreams she'd be no help to Maria at all.

"Isabel, listen to me," Max said. "I know you are scared, I know you don't want to do this. I also know that you _can_ do it. You're strong enough to fight away your dreams now that you know they are a danger to you."

Isabel bit her lip. "I don't know…" How could she do this when she barely trusted herself?

As though reading her thoughts, Max said, "Maybe you don't trust yourself, Isabel. But _I_ trust you. Always."

Isabel took a deep breath and nodded even though she knew Max wouldn't be able to see the movement. "I'll call you when I know something," she said softly.

After Max hung up, she quickly dialed another number.

"Any news on Maria?" Alex's sleepy voice asked immediately. He hadn't actually been asleep, she knew. He was too worried about Maria. But he'd been up all night worrying, and he was tired.

"Not yet. Max wants me to find her with my gifts…" She trailed off. She didn't have to say how worried she was about this, he would understand.

And he did. "Do you want me to come over?"

"Yes."

* * *

Michael stared out the car window at the distant silhouette of a young blonde teenager, perched on a rocky outcropping, huddled over herself.

Isabel had found Maria and called Max. Max had called Michael. Michael had insisted on coming to find his girlfriend. Liz had insisted also. So Alex had remained with Isabel, and Max, Michael, and Liz had gotten into the car and driven out into the desert, following the instructions Isabel had given. And now they were here, the three of them, watching Maria from afar, wondering what to say.

She knew they were there, she'd heard the car approach and lifted her head to stare at them. She hadn't left though. Was that a good sign? Maybe she actually wanted to talk.

Twice, Liz started to get out of the car. Twice, the brunette stopped, hesitant. No one knew what to say.

The distance between them seemed like an unsurpassable barrier. Not just the geographical distance, but the mental distance as well. How could any of them help her? How could they give her sympathy or comfort? None of them knew what she was feeling, what it was like to discover you'd been betrayed by someone you thought was supposed to love you. Not like this.

Finally, Michael pushed the door open and stepped out of the car. He turned to look at Max, and said firmly, "Stay here. I'll talk to her." Max and Liz both nodded, and he walked away from them.

He was glad Maria was safe. Nasedo hadn't found her, hadn't kidnapped her, hadn't tried to hurt her anymore. Still… was she ever safe? This was entirely his fault, he'd brought this mess on her, screwed-up her life so much. He should have been able to protect her, and he didn't. Couldn't. He'd let her get hurt.

Finally, he reached her. She didn't look up at his approach, and he didn't say anything. What could he say? How could he fix this?

Finally, Maria spoke, her voice cracking. "Why are you here?"

* * *

"There's something I need to do," Isabel said abruptly, getting up.

Alex stared at her. She didn't look happy, and that's what he had expected. Well, not happy. But satisfied. She'd dream-walked Maria. She'd located their missing friend. And she'd done it without getting herself hurt.

But instead of happy, she just looked… contemplative.

"What's wrong?" Alex asked, resting a hand on her shoulder. They were sitting on her bed, so close together he could feel her breathing, the slow and steady inhale and exhale of air.

Isabel shook her head. "It's complicated. I just need to… fix something."

Alex glanced at the window. He'd climbed in through the small opening, worried that if he used the front door, he'd alert Isabel's parents. Still, the sun was rising, it was almost time for the day to start. If he didn't leave soon, someone would notice his presence here, or his absence from home.

He wondered if Max and Liz had found Maria yet. He wondered what they were saying to her. He had wanted to go also, but he knew that he couldn't help Maria as well as Liz or Michael could. She was still one of his best friends, but sometimes there were things that he couldn't talk to her about. Maria would prefer Liz or Michael, and he only wanted to help her. So he'd stay away until after the others had talked to her.

"I should go," he said at last.

Isabel nodded. How had everything gone downhill so quickly. One moment, she and Alex were having a date, and were happy about it. The next, the entire world had crumbled, and she was left standing in the middle of all the rubble, wondering if they'd ever be able to fix this.

"Alex…" she reached out and caught his hand as he turned to leave. Giving him a smile, the best she could muster at that point, she said simply, "Thanks. For coming."

Alex smiled back. "Anytime," he said, and then he slipped away, out the window and out of sight.

Isabel watched him go, then picked up the phone and dialed a number.

"Did you find her? Is she okay?"

Isabel had called Tess before calling Michael, and had informed her of everything that had happened. As usual, Tess took the news in silence, unemotional, rational. She'd been concerned about Maria and livid at Nasedo, but she kept her temper under check easily. It hadn't been a time to get angry then, not when they had to act quickly. Emotions just got in the way, and there would be plenty of time for regret and rage later.

Isabel had promised to call back once they knew anything more, and then she'd hung up. Now that she knew where Maria was, now that Max was on his way to find her, she knew Tess deserved to know that the blonde human was safe.

"Yes." She head Tess' sigh of relief. "Max is on his way to her, probably with Liz and Michael." She didn't say how they had found Maria. She didn't want Tess to know that she'd been dream-walking. It wasn't that she thought Tess would disapprove at all, it was just…

Tess had leapt to the same conclusion she had about Nasedo. That he was the one who had sent her those dreams, made her wonder for so long about her place in the Valenti household. About her control over her gifts. She was angry, but she was also still scared. Even if Nasedo had planted the thoughts, they were valid concerns. If she screwed up her gifts, she could do serious harm.

Telling Tess that Isabel had dream-walked would be brining up those issues again, issues of control…

But there was something she wanted to say besides the news that Maria was safe. There was another reason she had called.

"Remember at the beginning of the year, when Max healed Liz, when Maria was going to turn us over to Valenti? Remember how we wanted to know if she could be mind-warped and you said no. Because she believed so strongly that we were a threat that if you tried to use your gifts to change her mind, you'd end up killing her. You can't make someone believe something that they are completely opposed to."

"Yes…" Tess sounded confused, unsure of where this conversation was headed.

"How long do mind-warps last?" Isabel demanded, hurrying on.

"What do you mean?" Tess asked in bewilderment.

"Well, it depends on the kind, right? I mean, if you're trying to make people see something that isn't there, or not see something that is there, you can't do it for very long. If you're erasing someone's memory, that lasts forever unless they somehow break out of it. But if you're trying to make someone do something… like when you made Valenti drop the case… how long does that last?"

"Forever, unless he has a reminder of why he shouldn't drop the case," Tess answered cautiously. "I was playing with his emotions, not his memory. That lasts longer, but also means that he can break out of it easier."

"And if he had a constant reminder every day about the case, the mind-warp would weaken, right?" Isabel pressed.

Tess paused, apparently thinking about this. Then she answered, "Yes, I suppose so. I mean, he'd keep thinking about the case, keep wondering why he dropped it, sooner or later he might start thinking that he wants to be involved…" After a moment, she asked, "Why are you so curious about this?"

"Tess, you can't makes someone do something they really, really don't want to do. Not without them suffering consequences," Isabel said slowly. "And, at the age of seven or eight, with completely uncontrolled, undeveloped gifts, you wouldn't have been anywhere near as good at mind-warping as you are now."

"Isabel…" Tess warned. She wasn't sure she wanted to have this conversation.

"And Valenti has a reminder of what you made him do. Every day, he sees you. Every day, he probably wonders why he adopted you. Every day…" She took a deep breath and plunged ahead. "If Valenti really didn't want you, you wouldn't have been able to make his adopt you without hurting him. But he did adopt you and he's not hurt. So he must have been okay with it then. Same with Kyle accepting you as his sister."

"I forced them. Even if they were okay with it, I still took the choice out of their hands," Tess countered.

"Yes," Isabel agreed. "You did. You took it out of there hands then. But only then." Isabel hesitated, putting her thoughts into coherent words. "They see you every day. Constant reminders. They have to start wondering, don't they? Which means they likely already did break out of their mind-warp."

"Even if they did break out of the mind-warp, they couldn't undo what they've already done, Isabel. They wouldn't un-adopt me."

Isabel smiled to herself. "You're right, Tess. Valenti wouldn't do that. But think about how they treat you. They accept you as family, they act like you're really their sister and daughter. There is no possible way your mind-warp would have lasted this long. You weren't strong enough then, and there were simply too many ways for them to break free, too many factors going against you. Valenti and Kyle probably wonder about what they did. They probably know that it was strange and out of character and not something they would have normally done. But they don't regret it now. They haven't changed their minds. You took the choice away from them once, Tess, but once your mind-warped faded, they continued to make the same choice that you did. They continued to consider you family. Not because you wanted them to, but because _they_ wanted to."

Tess didn't say anything.

"Nasedo was right about a lot of things, Tess. We do need to work on controlling our gifts. We do need to learn how to be more careful. We do need to be prepared for our enemies. But whatever he was trying to do to make you think your family doesn't want you… he was wrong about that, Tess."

There was a long silence, then Tess said quietly, "Call me again when Maria's back. When we know for certain that she's safe." And she hung up.

Isabel put down the phone. She wasn't sure how much Tess would listen to her, how much of anything she said Tess would believe. But she truly believed everything she had said, and she hoped that, in time, Tess would too.

* * *

"I wanted to break up with you," Michael said, taking a seat next to Maria on the rocks. She looked at him, confusion and disbelief in her eyes, and he continued, "When the reporter first approached me, he commented that a lot of people had died because of our secret. Dr. Drake, Ms. Topolski, Deputy Hannigan, Hank…now the reporter as well…" He drew a breath and looked away. "The real Sean also, I guess."

Maria started. She hadn't even thought of that. But if Nasedo had taken Sean's shape, then he probably ensured that her mother's real husband wasn't going to suddenly appear. She felt a burning sensation behind her eyes. How could she have ever trusted this monster? How could she have thought that he was actually Sean?

"And, Nick Latcher asked me who was going to be next. I was… so afraid… that it might be you." Michael rubbed the back of his head absently. He wasn't good with words, but he wanted to say this. Needed to say this. Because he needed Maria to hear it.

He glanced down at the desert ground, the rocks and sand and dust. Maria wasn't looking at him anymore, and he wondered what she was thinking.

"I was going to break up with you. I thought you'd be safer if I did. Who knows what people will do to get to me? You could be caught in the middle of that." Michael paused, chancing another quick look at Maria, wishing she would look at him. But she was still looking in the other direction, away from him. "I… when Isabel called and told me what had happened… it was like all my fears had just come true. You did get hurt… because of me. And I was so determined then, I wanted to break up with you. I drove all the way here with Max and Liz, planning to do just that."

"You what?" Maria asked, her voice hoarse, like sandpaper. "I discover the man I believe to be as close to a father as I will ever get is actually an alien trying to fool us all… and you want to break up with me?" She suddenly started laughing, unable to choke back the hysterical giggles that escaped her mouth. The situation wasn't funny at all, but she just couldn't stop.

Michael, startled, just stared at her for a moment. Then he said, "And when I got here, when I saw you sitting on these rocks, looking so lost…" He shook his head. "I couldn't do it. I knew that breaking up with you would be for the best, but I… I just couldn't. I still can't."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Maria snapped, irritated. "You want to break up with me, you just don't have the guts." She stood up angrily, intent of storming away from him.

But Michael stood up as well, and caught her arm as she brushed past.

"You drive me insane," Michael said in a low growl. "You're annoying and frustrating and controlling. You want me to do exactly what you want, but half the time I don't know what you want, and I can't figure it out."

"Maybe that's because you never try," Maria hissed.

"Maybe it's because you're impossible to understand," Michael shot back. He dropped her arm and said softly, "But when Max told me what Nasedo had done, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to rip the shape-shifter apart with my bare hands. Because I knew how much you were hurting, and it was making me hurt as well."

Maria monetarily entertained the idea of Michael tearing apart Nasedo. It was an appealing thought, she had to admit.

"I can't leave you." Michael shrugged at the irony of it. "I just can't walk away. When Hank was first in the hospital, when I wanted to leave Roswell, Isabel fell into hysterics. She begged me not to go, sobbing… and that was the only reason I stayed. But she had to beg me before I could see that I didn't want to leave her. With you… you push me away, and I don't want to go. You don't even have to do anything, and I'm still here."

Maria leaned back against the rocks she had been sitting on moments before. "I thought I had found my father. Or… as close to a father as I was ever going to get. I… I cared about him," she whispered. "I trusted him."

"I know," Michael said. He knew exactly what it was like to have your entire life turn up-side down. To have everything spin out of control so badly that you think running away is the only way to stop it. He understood what Maria felt, and it hurt so much to know she was in this much pain.

"I _trusted_ him," Maria murmured again.

Michael stared at her. He wanted to tell her so many things. He wanted to tell her that he could never imagine himself with anyone besides her. He wanted to tell her that she was one of the most important people in the world to him. He wanted to tell her that he wished he could take away her pain, transfer it to himself instead. He wanted to tell her that he knew what she was feeling because he'd felt it before, because he too struggled with his family… or lack thereof. He wanted to tell her that he was angry at everyone, but mostly himself, for not acting on his earlier suspicions. He had known something was wrong with this man pretending to be Sean, but he'd done nothing, and now it had backfired.

But there were so many words stuck in his throat that he couldn't force any of them out. A heavy silence fell, intense and unbreakable.

He was Michael, and any time he tried to offer words of sympathy or understanding, they came out wrong and mixed up. He knew that, and he knew no matter what he tried to say, it would never be exactly what he wanted to tell her.

So he settled for a simple sentence, one he knew couldn't be misunderstood.

Reaching up, he brushed away the solitary tear that had slowly slipped down Maria cheek, and said, "You can trust me."

* * *

Next Chapter: Watcher in the Dark

Due: Sun 6/24


	80. Watcher in the Dark

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: It's a pretty short chapter. Everyone is still reeling from the after-effects of the Sean revelation, so it focuses more on that. There is little to no action. Basically, what I am trying to say, is that I am fully aware that this is a transitional chapter. But there will be more action soon enough.

* * *

Chapter Seventy-Nine: Watcher in the Dark

Max was the first one to broach the subject. He mentioned it casually to Liz, who looked at him as though he was insane. When Isabel tried to bring it up with Michael, he glowered at her until she left the apartment. Alex looked uncomfortable when Isabel asked for his opinion, and anxious when Liz questioned about the same thing. Tess was the only one who stayed out of it, but even she was interested.

The thing was, no matter how hard this was for Maria, they did need to talk about what had happened. They had to discuss the new developments, because Nasedo was now labeled a threat.

But Liz told Max that the last thing Maria needed right now was to worry about everyone else's safety when she could barely take care of herself. And Michael said pointedly to Isabel that he wasn't going to put his girlfriend through anymore trauma right now. And Alex told Isabel that it was Maria's decision, not his. And he told Liz that he didn't really know what his opinion was. And Tess watched all of this and wondered if everyone would start thinking differently if Nasedo attacked them.

About a week after Isabel had revealed the truth about Sean, Max put his foot down and firmly informed all of them that while the last thing he wanted was to cause Maria any more pain, they were all in danger and this conversation simply could not wait.

Which was how the seven of them ended up at the cliffs, looking annoyed, grumpy, and frustrated.

"So…" Max started.

Maria, eyes downcast and angry, said, "He emailed my mom some stupid flowery garbage about how he had to leave for everyone else's sake. So she thinks he's gone, and doesn't know why. We don't have to worry about that."

There was a very awkward silence while everyone tried to think of what to say, then Tess cleared her throat and said softly, "Well, your mother must have told Jim what happened as well. He thinks Sean is a lousy father who runs when things get difficult… but he doesn't think he's an alien."

Again, the silence. Liz reached out and squeezed Maria's arm, giving her a supportive smile. Michael glared at Max for calling this meeting. Isabel looked uncomfortable.

Alex decided to speak. "Maria?" he asked gently. "Can I speak to you for a moment? Over there," he gestured away from the others.

Maria gave him a puzzled look, but acquiesced and let him lead her away from the others. Once they were out of earshot, Alex lowered his voice and said simply, "I'm not going to tell you that I understand what you are going through, because I don't. And I can't tell you that I know what Max is thinking, because I don't. But I do know that nobody in this group, not even Tess, wants to upset you. They're just all scared because this shape-shifter is a threat, and they don't want anyone else to be hurt by him."

Maria frowned and asked, "You think I should just sit down and recount everything I know about the man pretending to be Sean? Like I'm totally fine with it, like's it's just some stupid conversation that doesn't matter?"

"Maria, I'm not going to tell you what to do or what to feel," Alex replied with a shrug. "That's your decision. But I do want you to at least consider that Max just has everyone's safety and best interests at heart."

Maria nodded slowly, letting her gaze wander to the others. Max was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, talking softly to Liz. Liz looked annoyed at him, and was probably telling Max that he shouldn't be making Maria do this. But even though she was upset, she was leaning in towards him, so close that the wind kept blowing her hair up into his face. Michael was watching Maria with an obsessed protective stare, as though prepared to jump to her defense at any moment. His dark expression culminated in the intense scowl emanating from his eyes. Tess and Isabel were staring at each other, having a silent conversation that Maria couldn't read. But Isabel seemed to be trying to reassure Tess about something, or convince her of something. And Tess seemed reluctant to take the other girl's support, but reluctant to disregard it as well.

Quite suddenly, she understood. She hated this shape-shifter with a passion. Hated him for playing her and her mother, for causing so much heartache. But all of these people… they weren't here to cause her more harm. They were here because they thought that dissecting everything that had happened so that they could comprehend the tiny details of her interaction with Nasedo was the only way to keep her from coming to more harm.

She made her decision.

Walking back to the others, she said simply, "I don't know how he knew that Sean was still married to my mother at that point. Maybe he got it from the hospital records. But when he came here… all the things he said to me… He wanted my trust. He wanted Michael's as well, because he must have known he could get to the rest of you that way."

Max, taking Maria's words for what they were-an invitation to ask the necessary questions- said, "Any idea what his ultimate plan was?"

Maria shook her head slowly. "I never really picked up on any of the warning signs. I didn't know the real Sean, so I thought…" She paused, thinking over everything Sean had ever said to her. "The things he said, the way he acted… He wanted more than my trust. He wanted me to rely on him. To need him."

Tess turned from Maria to Max and said, "He wanted the same from us, Max. He was going to teach us how to control our powers…" at Isabel's glare she rolled her eyes and corrected herself, "… I mean our _gifts_. He wanted us to need him."

"True," Max said with a nod. "He knows about where we come from, he's made illusions to it before. But he won't tell us everything, he's waiting…"

"But why would it be so important for him to control the four of you?" Maria asked skeptically. "Unless the four of you are important somehow?"

Isabel shrugged. "Maybe we are."

"So what do we know about this guy?" Michael cut in. "Besides that he wants to control us?"

"Pretty much nothing," Max conceded. "Except… I think he knows a lot. All the warnings that he gave us about Pierce and the FBI, about the enemy aliens. He knows a lot. That knowledge… that was his power."

"Well, it isn't like his gifts are that weak either," Isabel muttered, remembering all the things the shape-shifter had been able to do. Like control their dreams…

"Why do you think he wants us alive?" Tess asked curiously. As all eyes turned to look at her, she elaborated, "He's had so many opportunities to kill us… or, in Isabel's case, to let her die. But he hasn't taken them. He must want us alive. Why?"

"Well, that goes back to Maria's question," Michael said. "Why are we important?"

"Who knows," Max said. Then he added thoughtfully, "But it might be a good thing he doesn't want us dead. As long as we're alive, we can fight back." Although they still had the FBI to worry about, and Max wasn't entirely sure that trying to fight Nasedo wouldn't end up with them accidentally revealing themselves to the government.

"At least we know he's against the FBI," Liz said softly, speaking up for the first time since the meeting started. "I don't think we would be able to beat them if he was on their side."

"No kidding," Isabel muttered under her breath. As it was, she didn't know if she really believed that they could beat the FBI. There was just so much they didn't know, and without that knowledge, they were at a serious disadvantage.

"He seems to really hate the FBI," Max said. That much he knew from his conversations with the shape-shifter.

"I wonder if it's personal? Did they do something to him?" Alex asked.

"Yes," Michael said simply. "They did."

It happened when Tess turned her gaze to Michael. Brilliant sapphire eyes lifted to meet darkened brown ones, and Tess suddenly staggered backwards under the force of a violent vision.

_White. Bright white. Eye-searing, stark white. Everywhere._

When Tess opened her eyes again, she found Max crouched on the ground next to her, trying to heal her of whatever the injury was. Isabel was hovering behind him, looking worried and anxious, and the others were all staring at her in confusion and fear.

She pushed Max's hand away. "I'm not hurt. It's just a vision," she said, groaning slightly as her head started to pound. A very painful vision.

"Of what?" Max asked as she struggled to her feet.

'White," Tess replied, shivering in sudden fear.

"What?" Alex asked, not understanding her answer.

"A room, all white," Michael said, meeting Tess' eyes. She nodded, and he continued, "It was a vision I saw when I found the shape-shifter's button in Deputy Hannigan's car. My guess is that the FBI had the shape-shifter for a while before he escaped and came here. And that they had him in that room."

Isabel nodded slowly. She'd seen the vision also, the time she'd dream-walked Michael after he'd ended up in the hospital in hopes that she could figure out what Hank had done to him. The vision had given her the creeps, and left her with a vague uneasiness that lingered long after she'd left his mind.

"Why would Tess suddenly see your vision?" Liz demanded. She had no idea how visions worked, but it seemed odd that Tess would so abruptly see something that Michael had seen such a long time ago.

"I think it was a warning for all of us," Tess replied slowly, choosing her words with deliberation. "I think it's a warning that we need to be careful. Or one of us could end up there." She stared at Max for a moment, and he nodded.

"It's more than that," Isabel countered. "Sean… Nasedo… he warned us that Pierce was closer than we thought. I think this is a sign that he was telling the truth." She turned to Maria and added, "Sean may have lied all the time, but Nasedo… when he was being Nasedo and not Sean… I don't think he did. He might have not told the entire truth, but he never flat out lied. We need to take his warnings seriously."

Maria accepted this for a moment, then shrugged. "I guess. I don't know." Then her expression hardened. "But I do know one thing. He's not going to give up and he's not going to go away."

"No," Max conceded. "He's not."

* * *

"I'm sorry."

Maria glanced over at Michael in confusion. He'd offered to accompany her back to her house after the meeting and then walk home himself. They were sitting in her car, parked in front of her house. The sun had sent, and the night was very dark, heavy clouds obscuring all the stars and the moon.

"For what?" Maria asked.

"Everything," Michael replied.

Maria shook her head. "What Nasedo did… it wasn't your fault." In a way, it was his fault. They both knew that. If Max hadn't healed Liz, if she hadn't been sucked into this entire mess, Nasedo would never have picked her as a target. And yet… If Max hadn't healed Liz, if she hadn't been sucked into this entire mess, Liz would be dead, and Michael probably wouldn't have risked his life and exposing his secret to save her mother from the car crash.

Michael didn't reply, just looked away.

Maria sighed. He was an idiot. A stubborn, self-absorbed, reckless, emotionally-distant idiot.

But he was _her_ idiot.

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, then got out of the car. Michael followed suit, closing the car door behind him and watching as Maria walked up towards the door to her house. She paused on the steps in front of the door, the porch light illuminating her tired features, and glanced back at him. Then she opened the door and slipped into the house, disappearing from view.

Michael waited a moment longer until he saw the light in her room flicker on, until he knew she was safely inside. Then he turned and started walking back towards his own apartment.

A few minutes after Michael had left, a figure stepped out of the shadows and glanced up at Maria's window. "Don't get too confident, Maria," the figure murmured. "I haven't left yet." And then Nasedo was gone, blending into the shadows and out of sight.

* * *

Pierce sat in his car and stared across the street at the empty diner. The Crashdown always got on his nerves. So many people sitting inside, laughing and talking about aliens and abductions, not realizing how much of a threat these creatures were. He knew. He'd lost family to the barbaric extraterrestrials, and he was going to make sure that this country was safe.

By any means necessary.

Then the people he was waiting for arrived. The brunette girl was the first to appear in the diner. She was clearly in charge of cleaning and closing up for the night. She moved around, wiping down the tables, clearing any remaining dishes, and finally locking the front door.

The brunette boy stepped out of the back room at that point and walked over to her. She turned to him and smiled, leaning into his embrace. He kissed the top of her head.

Max Evans and Liz Parker.

Pierce shook his head. The shape-shifter had killed his best lead; the reporter. The shape-shifter appeared intent on continually thwarting his every plan. And so far, he had succeeded.

Pierce leaned back against the leather seat of his car. Max Evans and his friends were too well liked by the community. He couldn't just sweep in and kidnap one of them, someone would notice the disappearance. He doubted they would be able to find him, but he wasn't entirely sure. He still didn't know the extent of their supernatural abilities, or if there were others out there. It was too dangerous to do anything until he was absolutely sure his plan would work, and he could escape without any political or alien repercussions.

Max Evans left the diner and started walking down the street. Liz Parker stayed at the window, watching him leave, her eyes lightening up when he turned to look back at her one more time.

Pierce watched the display of affection with distaste. How could she, a human girl, care so deeply for this… this… _monster_?

Max turned away from Liz and glanced around, suddenly feeling inexplicably nervous. His eyes landed on the black car parked across the street, on the shadowed figure sitting at the wheel. He couldn't see clearly, but his instincts were screaming at him to get as far away from this person as possible.

He turned and looked back at the diner. Liz had turned off the lights and disappeared upstairs. Content that she was safely inside for the night, he turned and continued to walk away.

Behind him, the black car drove away.

* * *

Next Chapter: Untitled (yes, that is actually what I am naming the chapter)

Due: Sun 6/30


	81. The Untitled Investigation

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: So we had a family reunion last weekend for my grandfather's eightieth birthday. There were about forty of us there (we are a very big family). It was crazy. And no writing got done. So this is late (again), but I really am trying to be better about the due dates.

_Italics _are dreams.

* * *

Chapter Eighty: Untitled

_The sand beneath his feet shimmered in the heat of the broiling desert sun. He was dressed casually, in loose jeans and a white t-shirt, and the wind buffeted his hair. His eyes were trained on the distant figure of a girl, tall and beautiful, with long blonde hair sweeping out around her._

_The girl drew nearer in the blink of an eye, as though suddenly crossing the vast desert between them in the fraction of a second. He smiled at her, not even slightly confused at her apparent ability to defy distance._

_It was a dream, after all. Anything could happen._

_He reached out with one hand and smoothed back a few wild strands of blonde hair, watching the light that sparkled mischievously in her eyes. She was smiling up at him, red lips turned up into a half-circle pout._

_He'd never seen a more beautiful woman._

_He looked down at the sand, and saw strange symbols appearing. Lines interconnecting, circles and spirals rising from the earth. He didn't understand what the signs meant, but he knew they were familiar. He knelt down, reaching his fingers towards the sand, letting his palm run over the nearest spiral of earth._

"_What is it?" the girl asked, puzzled by his strange behavior._

_He looked up at her, abruptly forgetting the symbols. They weren't important, not now that she was here. Why would he waste his time on deciphering hidden meanings in strange texts when he could just relax with her?_

"_Nothing," he said, and he meant it._

As he slowly opened his eyes, it took Michael a moment to figure out where he was. The extreme heat of the desert had been replaced by the coolness of a night breeze coming through the open window. The sand he stood on only moments before was now a carpet underneath his feet, and he was reclining on the sofa. The rocky landscape had melted into his apartment walls, dark white in the dim light cast by the sliver of moon in the sky.

And the beautiful girl had been replaced as well. Instead of Isabel, it was Maria who was there, leaning against his chest, asleep.

He stared at her, watching as her chest rose and fell with every inhalation and exhalation of breath.

What was it Nasedo had told Isabel? That their dreams were supposed to teach them of the past and prepare them for the future?

Which would mean his future was with Isabel.

He stood slowly, carefully moving Maria so that he could slip away without waking her. She'd come over in the evening to hang out and watch a movie, and they both must have fallen asleep.

It had been two days since the meeting in the desert, three days since Sean was revealed to be a shape-shifter, and she was doing remarkably well, all things considered. Liz and Alex were supportive, and Amy didn't know the entire truth, although she seemed a little suspicious of Sean's sudden departure. Max and Isabel were attempting to be nice to Maria, clearly feeling guilty. After all, it was their presence that had drawn Nasedo to Roswell, and into Maria's life. Even Tess was being polite to Maria.

Liz and Max had gone back to staring at each other with deep, soulful, incredibly nauseating gazes. The rift in their relationship seemed to be slowly mending, and although Michael was, begrudgingly, happy for Max, he also knew that if he had to listen to anymore poetic descriptions of Liz's beauty, personality, or brilliance, he might just end up killing the other alien.

Isabel and Alex were a more difficult couple to understand. They were still definitely a couple, but something had changed. From the hesitancy in Isabel's actions and the suspicion present in her friends' gazes whenever Alex was around, he was fairly certain that Alex had finally spoken up about the way Isabel's friends had treated him. Isabel seemed to be attempting to find some common ground between Alex and her friends, but Michael wasn't sure that that would be possible.

Sooner or later, she was going to have to make up her mind, determine exactly where she stood and what was most important to her. Alex wouldn't wait forever.

And, Michael thought idly, Tess, Sara, Jessica, and Trudy wouldn't either.

The only good thing that had come out of the mess between Isabel and her friends was that she was now friendly with Tess again. Somehow, she'd managed to bridge that gap between the two, and there had been no more repeats of their argument, no more repeats of Isabel yelling in the middle of the quad, or of Tess slapping her.

Michael sighed and looked back at the sleeping Maria.

Max and Isabel were ready to disregard everything Nasedo said, but Michael wasn't. He hated Sean, he wanted to murder the shape-shifter. He wanted to cause him as much pain as he had caused Maria. He wanted to rip him limb from limb. Slowly and painfully.

But he also believed the shape-shifter had told the truth about many things. He believed that there were enemy aliens out there who wanted to kill them. He believed that somewhere a war was being fought, and they were involved in it. He believed that these dreams meant something.

But an indication of the future?

He shook his head, smiling slightly as Maria mumbled something incoherent in her sleep. The moonlight fell across her features, making them glow softly.

He decided he liked her when she was asleep. She wasn't lecturing him, she wasn't arguing with him, she wasn't ignoring him. He was subjected to the shrill screech of her voice. And he could just stare at her, in silence, and not have to worry that she'd find it creepy or disconcerting or annoying.

The future wasn't set in stone. He would figure out what exactly these dreams meant, and how much of a bearing they had on his future. And then, someday soon, he was sure that the girl in the dreams wouldn't be Isabel anymore.

It would be Maria.

* * *

Tess opened her eyes and looked around the darkened room. She didn't know what had woken her up, but some sixth sense had dragged her from her deep sleep and thrust her into full awareness in a matter of seconds. Her eyes rapidly adjusted to the darkness, pupils expanding to bring in more light.

And she saw what had awakened her.

Sitting in her desk chair, which he had pulled out so that it was directly across from her bed, was Nasedo.

Wearing Sean's face.

The scream started low in her chest, rising quickly through her throat, until she managed to clamp her teeth shut and keep it from erupting. Chancing a quick look at her bedroom door, she frowned. That last thing she wanted was to alert Kyle or Jim to the intruder's presence. She had to get rid of him, but she had to do it carefully.

Her heart was hammering.

She looked back at Nasedo. The bedroom window was open, he must have come in that way. She swallowed, waiting.

"That was impressive, your Majesty," Nasedo said calmly. "You awoke only moments after I sat down. Your subconscious is well trained."

"What do you want?" Tess said cautiously. She pushed the covers away, inwardly preparing herself for whatever was going to happen.

"Just to talk," Nasedo replied, holding up his hands in a sign of surrender. "I come in peace."

The clichéd line was almost too much for Tess, and she restrained herself, with great difficulty, from throwing him across the room. She settled, instead, for glaring at him, eyes narrowed.

"I don't have anything to say to you," Tess snapped. "Get out."

"Or you'll what?" Nasedo laughed softly. "If you had any intention of hurting me, you would have done it the moment you woke up. But, of course, we both know you won't risk drawing your brother or father's attention, will you?"

"Leave them out of this," Tess threatened in a low voice, her cheeks tinted red with anger.

"Oh… protective, aren't you?" Nasedo mocked. He folded his arms over his chest. "They're not really your family, you know. They're not even your species. Why do you care about them?"

Tess opened her mouth to answer, then closed it. She didn't need to explain anything to this alien. She owed him nothing. "Get out," she repeated. Eyeing the bedroom door once again, she quickly weighed her options. If she tried to throw him out, she would wake Jim and Kyle. If she could get him out before they got to her room, she could claim it was just a human intruder and she'd scared him away. She could use her gifts to lock her bedroom door, that would buy her a few extra seconds. Although, if he thought she was in danger, Jim would probably just knock the thing down.

Max, Michael, and Isabel were too far away. Even if she could get to a phone and call them before Nasedo stopped her, they still wouldn't be able to reach her any time soon.

She was on her own.

"Your Majesty, I only want to talk to you," Nasedo said softly, his tone almost apologetic. "I wouldn't have barged in like this if I didn't think it was the only way. But I do need you to hear me out."

"Why should I?" Tess snapped. She quickly raised a hand and gestured towards the door, listening to the snap of the door's lock falling into place. Just in case…

Nasedo frowned, but didn't comment on her action. "I offered you a chance to learn… to be trained. To be in control."

Tess' stiffened and replied icily, "You offered that chance to Max, not me. And do you really think I'd trust you now, after what you did?"

"Do you feel in control? Do you think you are no longer in danger? Can you really afford to just pretend to be human? Will it keep you safe?" Nasedo leaned forward, eyes shinning with conviction. "I _can_ help you, and you know that."

"We don't need your help," Tess replied.

"Really?" Nasedo asked, sounding skeptical. "Do you even know what is after you?" When Tess didn't answer, he smirked, pressing his advantage. "Do you think you can protect yourself and your family from an enemy you don't even know?"

"Then tell me," Tess said harshly. "Give me the answers." She glanced at the window. She could force him out of it, but… she wanted answers. She wanted to know what he had to say.

She believed him.

He was a liar, a betrayer, a murderer. She had no reason whatsoever to believe a single word coming out of his mouth. He had hurt them all, and he was a threat.

She knew, beyond any reasonable doubt, that he was a threat.

She also knew that he was an ally.

It was all about control. Whoever had the information, controlled the power. Whoever had the power, controlled everything else.

"I can't tell you," Nasedo replied. "There are some things you are going to have to learn for yourself, your Majesty. Some lessons can only be taught through experience."

"Why do you call me that?" Tess whispered.

Nasedo stood up. "You have the ability to play with people's minds. And perhaps Isabel was right when she told you that your brother and father now accepted you on their own terms, not yours. But she overlooked an important part of that entire story." He paused, relishing in the surprise that appeared on her face when he mentioned her conversation with Isabel. Perhaps now she would see that he knew so much more than all of them, that he could be an asset. And that if they tried to go against him, he could be a formidable opponent.

"And what part is that?" Tess asked sarcastically.

Nasedo tilted his head to the side and regarded her for a moment in silence. Then he said, "You were weak then. Your power… sorry, _gift_… raw as it was, could not have done much damage to your family. But you are much stronger now, and yet you still do not have enough control. If you do not learn how to control yourself, you may accidentally use your gifts against someone, and it will do more harm than you could ever imagine."

"I know control," Tess spat.

Nasedo shook his head. "You know party tricks and small magic acts. But, trust me, when your emotions lose control, when you become truly upset, you will have no control over your gifts at all."

Tess shrugged. "Then I just won't get that upset," she replied simply. She'd managed to keep her gifts confined during the past few months, and she'd had plenty to be upset about then. She hadn't accidentally mind-warped anyone, hadn't put any lives in danger. Nasedo was simply trying to scare her.

Nasedo hesitated, then said, "They're coming for you, for all of you. And you will get upset, because you care too much about your family not to. Your Majesty, you are, and always will be, a threat to everyone around you. Unless you let me help you, let me teach you." He stopped, then sighed and said, "It's your choice. You can trust me, or you can refuse my help. But when your own gifts hurt those you love… by then it may be too late." He turned to leave, but Tess' next question stopped him.

"How can we trust you?"

"Because if I wanted you dead, I'd have already killed you," Nasedo replied, his words simple, his tone serious. And he slipped out the window, leaving Tess to stare after him in silence and fear.

For a moment, the night was silent. Then Tess got up and unlocked her bedroom door, tiptoed out into the hallway, and to the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of water, dumped in as much ice as she could, and drank the entire thing in one gulp.

"Tess? You okay?"

She spun around in surprise to see Kyle standing there, staring at her in confusion.

"I heard you walk into the kitchen…" he explained, running a hand through his hair absently and watching her through sleepy eyes.

"I'm fine, Kyle. Just thirsty," Tess replied, lifting up her empty water glass.

"You sure?" Kyle asked.

Tess nodded. Kyle was very perceptive when he wanted to be, and yet, at other times, missed every single signal people sent out. It was just her luck that tonight he decided to be observant.

"Yeah… I've been feeling a little off lately… maybe I'm sick," Tess answered, lying softly. It was strange, how easy it was to look her brother straight in the eyes and tell something so completely not true. Practice made perfect, and she'd had more than her fair share of practice keeping secrets.

Kyle still seemed unsure.

Tess forced a smile. "Seriously, I'm fine, Kyle." She gave him a teasing look and asked, "Don't you trust me?"

Kyle laughed, but the laughter didn't erase the thoughtful expression in his eyes.

"I trust you," he answered seriously, and turned and went back to bed.

Tess stared at the spot he had been standing, then said almost inaudibly, "You really shouldn't."

* * *

"Please, can you just…" Isabel stopped talking with a frustrated grimace. She and Sara were standing in front of her locker, arguing. About Alex.

Isabel still hadn't made up her mind about exactly what she wanted. She liked Alex, she really did, but these were her friends. And yes, they had all accepted the fact that she was going to date, and yes, they had not stopped being friends with her because of that. But they were not exactly welcoming towards Alex. They rarely mocked him to his face, but when he wasn't there, she knew they discussed how ill-suited he was for her.

Exactly what they had done when Liz was dating Kyle.

"Just what, Izzy?" Sara asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Be nice to him?" Isabel demanded, narrowing her eyes at her friend. She liked these girls, she really did, but she liked Alex also.

"Would you like us to be best friends with everyone else at the school also?" Sara asked, her voice dripping with honeyed sarcasm.

"This is different," Isabel protested.

"How?"

"Because I'm your friend and Alex is the guy I'm dating!" Isabel hissed in annoyance. Why couldn't they understand this? Maybe she didn't care about all the other students at the school. Maybe she only cared about Alex. Maybe that made her selfish and a snob. But she _did_ care and they _were_ her friends and so they should care also.

Sara rolled her eyes. "And that makes all the difference in the world, doesn't it?" she said coolly. "Because you finally decide you're going to care about someone, everyone else has to roll over and do what you ask?" Her bitter tone left no doubt in Isabel's mind that she was tired of this constant bickering.

Well, Isabel was tired also. But that didn't solve the problem.

"No, the world revolves around you, doesn't it?" Isabel snapped back.

"Only weeks ago, you probably thought we were just shallow, vapid, arrogant brats," Sara replied calmly. "Now all of a sudden, we're friends and you don't think so ill or us. Then you start dating Alex, and we're back to being shallow. Pick a position already, Izzy." She stalked away, and Isabel rested her head against the cold metal of her locker.

The bell rang for homeroom, and she wanted the day to be over already.

* * *

Agent Willis knocked on the door to the house and glanced around idly. The lawn was manicured, the bushes trimmed, the flowers arranged in a pleasing transition from deep blues to softer pale pinks across the front yard. This was clearly the house of someone who cared about its appearance, and had the time and money to keep it up.

A moment later, the door swung open, and a woman appeared, looking slightly bewildered by his presence.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

Agent Willis smiled pleasantly. "Mrs. Evans?" he asked. She nodded, and he continued, "My name is Willis. I'm with the DEA."

Diane Evans blinked in surprise. "The Drug Enforcement Agency?" she asked. Why would the agency in charge of policing illegal drugs be doing in Roswell? They weren't the type who went after small time dealers; the DEA dealt with powerful organized crime. The Columbian cartel, the Thai and Burmese drug lords.

"That's right, ma'am. Do you have a moment? I wanted to ask you a few questions," Willis continued smoothly.

"About what?" Mrs. Evans asked, alarms bells ringing in her mind.

Willis hesitated. He had to play his cards carefully, he couldn't risk her becoming suspicious… "May I come in? This is a sensitive topic, you might not want to speak about it on your doorstep."

Mrs. Evans hesitated, then said firmly, "Tell me what this is about." She wasn't going to let a perfect stranger into her house, especially not one who claimed to be from one of the most powerful organizations in the country. Not until she knew what he wanted.

"Well… it's about your children, Mrs. Evans."

"What about them? Are they hurt?" Mrs. Evans asked, immediately imagining the worse. She hadn't seen much of Max or Isabel the past few days, but they all knew of Sean's sudden departure, and how devastating it was for Maria. Amy herself had confided that Maria was losing sleep over the loss of her father… again… and Mrs. Evans knew that her children were now close to Maria. They would be understandably worried.

But what if it was something else? What if she hadn't seen them because they were in some sort of trouble.

"They're not hurt," Agent Willis replied. "But they may be in trouble."

"With drugs?" Mrs. Evans asked, jumping to the only conclusion she could. It had to be drugs, or else the DEA wouldn't be here. But her children were good kids. She knew that, like all teenagers, they'd probably experiment a little. They wouldn't, however, do anything that would cause the DEA to come after them.

Even as she said that, though, something was tugging at her mind, trying to remind her of something she'd forgotten. She just didn't know what it was.

"Not exactly," Willis replied. He frowned, then said with the air of someone unsure about how to reveal, "We have reason to believe that Hank Guerin may have been mixed up in something. Something that Michael Guerin was inadvertently drawn into. I doubt he realizes the danger he… may be in… and your children could potentially… be in a troublesome spot as well."

"What was Hank doing? How was Michael involved?" Mrs. Evans asked, already angry. She always disliked the drunken lout of a man, but she hadn't really thought that he would sink so low as to pull Michael into something quite this big. The poor boy never got a break…

"I can't tell you," Willis said regretfully. Inwardly, he smirked in triumph. Decent people like Mrs. Evans were so easy to manipulate. He knew how she felt about the late foster father and how protective she was of her children, and both those factors could easily be used against her.

"You can't…? My children could be in danger!" She was getting riled up, but Agent Willis interrupted her with a reassuring smile.

"Mrs. Evans, I can assure that we have no intention of letting either of your children get hurt. In fact, they are not in danger, per se. We simply think that they may know more than they realize, because of their close association with Michael and the late Hank Guerin."

Mrs. Evans let out a breath slowly and said, "So why don't you talk to them? What can I tell you? And why won't you tell me the specifics?"

"I can't disclose anything about untitled or ongoing cases," Willis explained.

Mrs. Evans stared at him, not understanding. "Untitled?"

"It means we have not given a particular designation to this case yet," Willis replied. "It has been assigned to a specific type of drug crime. Honestly… we're not entirely sure what we are dealing with. We're at the fact-gather stage right now. So it is untitled."

"I see," Mrs. Evans replied, although she really didn't.

"Mrs. Evans, I fully understand your reluctance to provide us with any information. In fact, I admire your determination to protect your children. But, you must understand, we want to protect them as well. We want to protect all of you."

"And how can I help you do that?" Mrs. Evans asked again, still suspicious.

"We want to ask you about your son and daughter's behavior around the time Hank Guerin was admitted to the hospital and around the time he passed away. The questions may not seem relevant to you, but I assure you that the answers are important to us. As for why we are coming to you and not your children, there a several reasons. First, I don't know how helpful your children would be. I trust that they are wonderful kids, but they are teenagers, and teenagers tend to see things in black and white. If they think their friend is in danger, they may refuse to tell us anything to try and protect him. They may not realize that withholding information only puts Michael in more danger. Secondly, I would rather not approach your children until the threat to Michael has been removed. Keeping them out of the loop keeps them safe. And lastly… well, I've looked into your family, Mrs. Evans, and I know how you found your children. I know that your son and daughter were abandoned by someone and left in the middle of the desert, and I know they have no memories of their time before meeting you. Whatever happened to them… it was traumatic. It had to have been, for them to repress their memories. And I… I don't want to do anything to cause them more… trauma. I don't want to hurt them at all, emotionally or mentally."

Mrs. Evans was silent throughout the entire talk. At the end, she looked away and ran a hand through her hair. "Oh…" she murmured, not sure how to respond.

"Please… at least let me ask the questions. You can refuse to answer if you wish," Agent Willis pleaded. When Mrs. Evans looked to be on the verge of agreeing, he added, "One other thing. For you Max and Isabel's safety… you can't mention this interview to them. They can't know about it at all."

Mrs. Evans hesitated. She hated lying to her children. She didn't want to go behind their back and share information about them with a complete stranger.

But something was tugging at her memory, trying to tell her something, trying to remind her of something forgotten or buried. Something… she should remember, and didn't.

She felt this would be betraying her children, although she didn't know why. She felt that she shouldn't do this, that she shouldn't trust people asking questions about Max and Isabel.

But she didn't know where this feeling came from, and she did know that if this man was speaking the truth, if Max and Isabel were in trouble, she had to help. She had to protect them.

"Okay," she said at last, stepping aside and allowing Agent Willis to come into her living room. "Come inside." She closed the door behind him, and couldn't shake the feeling that she had just made a big mistake.

* * *

Next Chapter: As Time Goes By

Due: Sun 7/8


	82. As Time Goes By

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: This chapter takes place over the course of about two weeks. Each section has a different day at the top, indicating what day of the week it is.

* * *

Chapter Eighty-One: As Time Goes By

_Saturday_

_I know that it's wrong to be so happy when my friends are having problems, but I can't help it. Max and I have somehow fallen into place, into this strange sort-of routine that lets him be who he is and me be who I am without either of us being too upset. We do normal things, go on normal dates, but I can still be there for him, for all of them, when a crisis comes. I don't feel second place to his Czechoslovakian problems anymore, and I don't feel guilty for not wanting to be just another person keeping his secret._

_I wish I could say things are going as well for Maria or Alex. I know Maria is trying to be brave, but she's not really fooling anyone. And Alex and Isabel keep having problems. She can't make up her mind about what she wants, and Alex says he won't wait forever. But who is he kidding? He'll follow her around as long as she gives him the hint that she might still want him because he's in love._

_So how can I feel happy when my friends are so upset? But I feel like I could do anything at all right now, like I could change the world._

_Give me one firm spot on which to stand and I will move the Earth._

_Archimedes said that. It was on our latest history test._

_All I know is that I'm Liz Parker, and I'm happy._

Liz put down the pen and sighed. Closing the journal, she glanced over at window to her room. It was dark outside, the night sky filled with tiny dots of white light. She had dressed carefully in a knee-length black skirt and a dark red top, and her hair fell in loose waves around her face. She and Max had a date planned, and it was a very important one.

They were celebrating their three month anniversary.

Honestly, neither of them were incredibly sure when they had actually started dating. The beginning of their tumultuous relationship had been so filled with constant dangers and problems, that when Liz thought back on it, she couldn't even remember if Max had ever asked her out on a first date. They had been through so much together, that Liz half wondered if they hadn't always been dating. She couldn't imagine life without Max and his family.

But, despite the fact that she had no idea if this was actually three months from the beginning, she knew that the shooting had been a little over three months ago, so this seemed as good as any day to celebrate.

Tomorrow, she decided as she hid her journal under her mattress, she would go and talk to Maria and Alex. She would try to help Alex with his Isabel problem, and she would just be there for Maria. Tomorrow, she would be the good friend again.

But tonight was going to be a night just for her and Max.

"Lizzie? Max is here…" Her mother's voice floated up to her, and her heartbeat quickened.

Time to go.

* * *

_Monday_

Max glanced around the exhibit he had just finished setting up. The walls were lined with newspaper and journal articles, hypothesis from websites, pictures of supposed 'sightings.' A few free standing display cases had astronomical and astrological information about different stars, planets, space shifts, black holes, and other things Max didn't quite understand. The far wall explained the physics of alien interaction, how all life forms gave off different electromagnetic signals, and aliens would be no different. The UFO Center had managed to transform itself into something worth seeing, and he had no doubt that the museum would become one of the town's greatest tourist attractions.

"It looks good," Max commented, turning to Brody.

But Brody wasn't looking at the walls. His attention was fixed on the two people sitting on the steps across the room from them. One was his nanny, a woman in her mid-twenties who Max vaguely recognized. The other was Sydney. The child was wearing a bright pink dress and lacy white socks in black sandals. But her face was unnaturally flushed and her eyes were distant.

"Brody?"

Brody started as Max rested his hand on the UFO Center owner's shoulder. He turned to Max, a smile coming to his lips, and said, "It does look good, doesn't it?"

"I'm done with the setup, so… time for me to go home. Are you… are you and Sydney… spending the rest of the day here?" Max asked, faltering slightly at the look that came back into Brody's eyes. It never ceased to worry him, how quickly the man's emotions changed. Most of the time they worked together, he was cheerful, albeit a little quirky. He trusted Max more now, and let down his guard quite often.

But when Sydney was mentioned…

The heartbroken tension in the air was heavy, like the weather right before a thunder storm.

"Yes, we are," Brody replied.

Max nodded and looked around again. Brody still refused to let him in the back room, or to talk to him about the specifics of what his electromagnetic lab did. He knew he couldn't push his luck, but he desperately wanted to know what was going on behind that closed door. Mostly, he wanted to convince himself that Brody wouldn't ever be a threat. He believed the story his boss had told about the abduction, he believed that Brody only wanted to discover the truth to save his daughter's life, but… belief wasn't enough. He wanted proof, and he urgently wanted to be right about this. He didn't want Brody to be the enemy.

Then again, Maria had never wanted Sean to be the enemy, and that hadn't made a difference in the end. Enemies came in all disguises, and they'd learned their lesson.

Trust no one.

Max felt a tugging on his arm, and looked down in surprise. Sydney was standing there, and he shook his head in confusion, having been so lost in his own thoughts that he hadn't even noticed her approach. She smiled up at him, innocent eyes wide, and asked hopefully, "Can you read a story to me, mister?"

"Oh, sweetheart, Max just finished up his work. I bet he wants to go home now," Brody interrupted, stepping forward and sweeping his daughter up into his arms. He rested her on his hip and added, "But I bet Samantha would read the story to you." He gestured to where the nanny sat, watching the entire exchange.

Sydney pouted. "But Daddy, she doesn't do voices the right way. All the boys in the story still sound like girls!"

"It's fine, I can read the story to her," Max interrupted swiftly before Brody had a chance to respond. He extended his hands towards Brody, and Sydney wriggled out of her father's grasp and into Max's arms. He placed the girl back on the floor and asked, "What book did you want me to read?"

Sydney tugged at his fingers excitedly, and said, "This way, this way." She pulled him towards her nanny, who had the book open on her lap.

"Max…" Brody called after him. Max turned and saw the other man staring at him, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Yes?"

Brody seemed to hesitate. Then, finally, he said, "Perhaps tomorrow I can show you around some of the equipment in my backroom?"

Max stared at him, taken aback, then down at the little girl who was yanking impatiently on his arm. He ruffled Sydney's silky hair with one hand and said to Brody, "I'd like that." Then he allowed Sydney to drag him over to the book.

* * *

_Wednesday_

"You're dating Kyle?" Tess asked, eyes widening as she clutched the phone to her ear. "But… what about Jason?"

"We broke up," Trudy's voice replied through the phone line. "We're better off as friends anyway."

"But… but…"

"Do you not want me to date your brother?" Trudy sounded confused by Tess' stuttering reluctance. Tess was the one who had been all for the relationship in the beginning, and to have her suddenly change her mind was a little disconcerting.

"No, of course that's not it. You and Kyle can date all you want!" Tess assured her friend quickly. "I just… you went on a date?"

"Yes… last night. We went to the Crashdown for dinner."

Tess accepted this in silence, pulling idly at a strand of blonde hair. The curl bounced out of her fingers and brushed against her chin. "You went on a date and you didn't tell me beforehand?" she asked at last.

Trudy laughed. "I don't have to run all of my decisions by you, Tess," she said teasingly. "I didn't tell Isabel, Sara, or Jessica either."

"But we're your friends!" Tess protested. Clearly, Trudy had forgotten all the rules of girlhood. She was supposed to tell them this sort of thing so that they could…

"Yes, and if I had told you four, you would have teased me mercilessly about it. Or tried to make me nervous. Or…"

"No we wouldn't!" Tess protested, knowing full well that they would have done exactly that. But they were her friends, they were supposed to do that. It was their _job_.

"Right," Trudy drawled. "Anyway, I got to go make some phone calls. I now have to have a repeat of this conversation with Isabel, Sara, and Jessica. And who knows, Cliff and Chris might need to know also."

"Okay," Tess said. "But you still should have told me earlier."

"Bye, Tess," Trudy said with another laugh, and hung up the phone.

Tess stared at the phone for a moment, then placed it down on her desk. She got up, stalked out of her room, shut the door tightly behind her, and stormed over to the kitchen.

"Kyle Valenti! How could you not tell me you went out with Trudy last night? How could you keep that sort of information from _me_?" Tess cried, drawing herself to her full height. Despite her short stature in comparison all of her family, including the aliens, she knew how to be threatening. Her eyes glowered with anger and she continued on her rant. "You went out with her last night! You've had almost _twenty-four_ hours to tell me, and you didn't!"

Kyle almost dropped the glass of orange juice he had been holding, and stared at Tess in some apprehension. Next to him, Jim quickly turned a laugh into a cough as Tess' narrowed blue eyes swung towards him, and excused himself from the room.

Kyle watched his father go, muttering under his breath, "Coward."

"Twenty-four hours! _Twenty-four_. And _Trudy_. One of my best friends. And you didn't even tell me?"

Kyle tried to suppress the smug grin that was threatening to spill out at the knowledge that he had managed to keep something a secret from Tess. Unfortunately, he was not entirely successful, and he was smiling broadly by the time she'd paused to take a breath.

"Don't you smile at me, mister!" Tess snapped, throwing her hands up in frustration. "You didn't tell me! You… _twenty-four_ hours!"

Kyle quickly forced himself to look contrite, but the laughter was still shinning in his eyes.

* * *

_Thursday_

Maria pulled open the door to her house and walked inside. She was so incredibly thankful to be home after a long and exhausting day, that she didn't notice the bag leaning against the wall in the front hallway, indicating that someone else besides her mother was in the house.

She wandered into the kitchen, not sparing a glance for the living room.

She hadn't been able to concentrate at school. She hadn't been able to think about anything. She'd gotten into an argument with Michael, who still seemed to think that shampoo was a thoughtful present to give someone when you went on a date with her. She'd seen Liz long enough to watch her friend stare longingly at Max, and that had made her irritable enough that she opted out of spending any time with Alex also, afraid that if he went into some explanation of his feelings for Isabel, she just might explode.

Seriously, how did her friends manage to not drive themselves insane? They were making her crazy.

She hunted around for a moment, before pulling the chips out of the pantry. Maybe she'd go up to her room and sit herself down with her English homework. That was bound to cheer her up.

Or not.

She wandered out of the kitchen and into the living room.

Where she froze at the sight that met her eyes.

Her mother was sitting on the sofa. Next to her was Jim Valenti. And they were… they were…

_Kissing_.

Amy pulled away from Jim and looked up at her daughter with the expression of a teenager who had just been caught with an unacceptable boyfriend. Jim opened and closed his mouth several times, but no sound came out. Maria's entire face flushed bright red, and she quickly averted her eyes.

Finally, Jim broke the silence. "Hello, Maria."

"Hi…" Maria trailed off and said, "I'm just going to go upstairs, so you two can… um… continue…"

And she turned and practically sprinted up the stairs, wishing she could somehow erase every mental image she now had of her mother and the Sheriff lip-locked.

* * *

_Sunday_

"_You know, Tess, we do have a front door," Max teased as he opened the window and allowed Tess to climb into the room._

"_And how was I supposed to tell your parents that I wanted to see you at two in the morning?" Tess asked, her lips quirking up into a graceful smile. She was dressed in a dark jean skirt and a low v-necked white blouse. "I really don't think they'd approve."_

"_Mm…" Max stepped closer to her, taking in her appearance. "I suppose you're right," he murmured, now so close he could smell the vanilla and honey scent of her perfume. He reached up, one hand grazing her cheek, and she leaned towards him, standing on her tiptoes so that they were closer to the same height._

"_Then we just won't tell your parents… will we?" Tess whispered, and Max bent down to kiss her as an answer._

Max opened his eyes with a start, and his first instinct was to go wash his mouth out with soap. He wasn't particularly surprised that he was now dreaming about Tess. Nasedo had said the dreams were reminders of how things were supposed to be, and according to Liz's flashes, he and Tess used to be an item. No, he was actually more surprised that the dreams had taken this long to start, given that Michael and Isabel had had them a long time ago.

He sat up in bed and debated calling Tess. Had she also dreamt about him? But before he could work out whether or not to wake her up, his cell phone rang, and glancing at the number, he realized she had solved the problem for him.

"Hi, Tess," Max said, putting the phone to his ear.

"I think I'm having nightmares," Tess said dryly.

Max had to stifle a laugh. "Yeah, me too," he agreed. "Look, Michael and Isabel have been having weird dreams for a while, and they manage okay. It shouldn't be any different for us. Besides, if they really are indicators of our past, maybe we can learn something from them. Something that will help us fight our enemies."

"Max, if I keep having these types of dreams about you, I will hand myself over to our enemies just to make the dreams stop," Tess replied.

Max frowned. "I'm not that unappealing," he protested.

"Right," Tess replied with a drawl. "Whatever. Look, as long as you're on the phone, I've got a question for you. Do you know if Michael or Isabel have been having dreams about that vision Michael had? The one with the white room?"

"I don't think they have. Why?" Max answered, worried.

"Because I am," Tess explained. "I think it's some type of warning, but I'm not sure what."

"Well, Michael got the vision from a button that belonged to Nasedo. And Nasedo was captured by the FBI for many, many years. So, chances are, the white room is an FBI thing," Max reasoned. Then he frowned. "I wonder why I haven't seen this vision yet. You, Michael, and Isabel have all seen it. I feel kind of left out."

Max could practically hear Tess rolling her eyes as she replied sarcastically, "Yes, it is a shame that you have yet to witness the horror and pain that was inflicted on Nasedo." She paused, then added, "Almost makes me feel sorry for him, though."

"Have you had any more nighttime visits?" Max questioned. Tess had told Isabel about Nasedo's surprise visit earlier the past week, and she had in turn informed her brother and Michael. They were all appalled that Nasedo would actually have the nerve to approach Tess and offer her help, given everything he had done to them, although, as Michael pointed out, they had known he wasn't just going to give up and leave.

"No," Tess answered. "Has Brody shown you around his entire backroom yet?" Max had told them all about Brody's offer, and they were anxiously awaiting the details.

"Not all of it. I've seen some. He's got a lot of technology back there, Tess, but I don't think he's after us. I think he's after whoever crashed back in '47."

"_We_ crashed in '47, Max, so he is, technically, after us."

"I mean he isn't here because of the shooting," Max retorted wearily. "I'll keep you updated about whatever I learn from him."

"You do that. And Max… I mean it. If I keep having these dreams about you… I'm turning myself over to the FBI."

Max smiled to himself as he hung up the phone. Leaning back on the pillows, he wondered what Liz would say if he told her about all this. Well, he'd have to tell her eventually, wouldn't he? Better sooner rather than later.

* * *

_Tuesday_

Isabel slid into the seat across from Alex and offered a tentative smile. "Hey," she said, somewhat cheerfully. She and Alex were still struggling to define their relationship in a way that allowed both of them to still hold onto what they wanted. Compromise was nothing knew to her, but it still didn't make it any easier, and lately she and Alex had been in conflict more often than not.

"Hey, how are you?" Alex said in a monotone.

"Good. You?"

"Good."

"Right." Isabel looked down at her the table and tried to think of something to say. They had agreed to meet at the Crashdown after school, and she had spent the entire day thinking of things she wanted to say. Now that she was actually faced with the reality of this conversation, she couldn't form a single coherent sentence.

"Look, Isabel…" Alex started, then stopped. "I…" He stopped again. "I want your friends to accept me," he said at last.

"They won't," Isabel said softly. "I mean… they'll accept that we are together, but they're not going to…" She shrugged and didn't finish the sentence.

"And you're okay with that?" Alex rejoined. "You're okay with the fact that you are asking me to condemn myself to being their… their laughingstock?"

"Are you okay with the fact that you're asking me to sacrifice the people that I actually like for you?" Isabel asked quietly.

"You shouldn't be friends with them," Alex retorted angrily. "They're not good people."

"Yes, they are!" Isabel snapped. "Just because they aren't nice to you doesn't make them horrible people. They're not evil. They're just…"

"I didn't mean that they were bad people," Alex said quickly, backtracking. He truly hadn't meant to say that, it had just slipped out. He was aggravated, but he knew better than to label people as good or evil. And he did believe that these girls had to have some redeeming qualities if Isabel was defending them.

"What did you mean?" Isabel asked pointedly.

Alex sighed and explained, "Being with you is like… a dream. It always has been a dream of mine. But that's all it's ever been for you either. And sooner or later, I can't think that you're going to wake up and move on, and I'm going to be left watching you walk away."

Alex pushed himself to his feet. When you're faced with the realization that something just isn't going to work, there are two choices. You can stay and fight, and most likely be the only one left fighting in the end, or you can just leave so that, if you're the first person to walk away, you won't be the one left behind. He had never condoned the second path, but as he walked out of the Crashdown, he felt the tiniest bit of victorious triumph, and decided that he could actually understand why walking away was so popular.

Isabel watched him go, her mouth open.

* * *

_Thursday_

Fraiser Woods, at night, was not a fun place to be.

Deputy Fisher came to this conclusion as he felt the sharp sting of braches snapping into his face. Again. He'd nearly tripped over a tangled mass of roots only a few minutes ago, and before that he'd torn his shirt on some thorns hanging from a nearby bush. He'd slipped on mud and moss and walked into a tree trunk. It was a dark night, the moon obscured by clouds, and he didn't really want to be there. It would be a miracle if he came out of this without lasting marks.

Still, there had been reports of people in the woods, causing some sort of ruckus. He had to investigate, it was his job. The Sheriff had assigned him this task, and he wasn't about to refuse the man.

He paused in a clearing at the same moment the clouds finally drifted away, and the moon was clear again. Faded light drenched the clearing, and he walked towards a crumpled figure lying pushed below an overturned tree trunk. A leg and a shoe were sticking out, and he got down on his hands and knees to drag the person out onto the grass.

The body had been dead a long enough that it was no longer recognizable. The person was still wearing a jacket, and he reached into the more-or-less intact coat and pulled out a wallet. He flipped to the driver's license, and stared at the picture and the name.

Agent Julia Topolski.

He blinked, then placed the wallet on her still form.

He had a job to do.

He stood up, wiping the dirt from his hands, and pulled out his cell phone. Dialing a number, he waited until the other end was answered.

"Sheriff Valenti? It's Deputy Fisher. We have a situation."

* * *

Agent Willis answered his phone on the second ring. "Agent Willis," he said softly.

"The body has been found. Are we prepared?" came Agent Pierce's terse reply.

Agent Willis stared down at the information he had gathered from Mrs. Evans. He gave a grim smile and answered, "Yes, sir, we are."

* * *

Next Chapter: Remember

Due: Sun 7/15


	83. Remember

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's Note: _Italics_ are dreams.

* * *

Chapter Eighty-Two: Remember

Nasedo stood in the desert, alone. The night sky was filled with stars, tiny dots of light that shimmered in the velvety blackness. In the distance, the town of Roswell lay silent, all its inhabitants asleep, unaware of what was about to happen.

Nasedo sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He was still in Sean's form, having spent so long in it, he was now accustomed to the figure.

It was not how he wished it to be. The Queen had refused his help, although he knew she was still afraid, still terrified, of what she could do. He no longer had the trust of the King either, and the other two Royals would most likely hate him as well.

Still, even if things had not worked quite according to plan, he still had some advantage.

He glanced up at the sky. He knew about their past, and they did not. And no matter how much they wanted to act like normal children, they would soon realize that normalcy was something they would never attain. It was about to happen…

And when it happened, they'd want answers. And he was the only one who had them.

He still had not given up hope of the Queen or the King. The Queen might still come to him, once she realized how little control she actually had. And the King, so desperately wanting to protect everyone, would have no choice in the end. He'd have to come, or he would fail in his role.

No, Nasedo reflected thoughtfully, he had not lost. Perhaps things had not turned out the way he wanted. But he had not lost.

Not yet.

He stared up at the sky.

It happened, so suddenly, so quickly, that no one would notice except the one person waiting and watching for it. But in that moment, a faint constellation, a set of stars that formed a v, seemed to shine the tiniest bit brighter.

"It is beginning," Nasedo murmured.

* * *

"_I love you," he said, reaching out with one hand and caressing her cheek. "I have from the moment you first came to my father's house, all those years ago." She smiled back at him, blue eyes partially hidden beneath a mass of untidy blonde curls. She was younger than him, and smaller, and he felt the strangest desire to protect her._

_Of course, he knew that her petite exterior held a temper that more than rivaled his own, and she was capable of protecting herself._

"_Well, then I suppose that it is a very good thing your father gave his approval to our courtship…" she replied, laughing slightly._

"_Indeed," he answered, leaning into kiss her._

_She was the daughter of a noble from another planet, and a marriage between the two would strengthen the diplomatic bonds of the planets. Her father, a diplomat himself, had moved his entire family from the safety of his own world to the strange palace on this foreign planet several years ago, when she had been only six. She'd been raised with the other courtiers and nobles, but her stubborn streak and flair for the dramatics had made her stand out, and quickly brought her several admirers._

_Including the king's son._

_They were young, far too young to think of actual marriage, but they'd both gotten permission from their respective parents to date, and they both knew that many people were already planning their distant wedding._

Max tossed fitfully, his sleep disturbed by these vivid dreams. Several times in the night, he woke up in a start, covered in sweat. But soon after, he'd drift back into the strange land shown in these dreams, and the strange images that seemed vaguely familiar.

_The four of them huddled together behind the corner of the hallway, watching with barely contained laughter as the servants tried to determine the source of the mess. The floor was covered with shards of broken glass from the window, and the curtain was ripped. Lying in the middle of the floor was a ball, heavy and made of metal, about the size of a fist. It was a common toy, part of a common sport on the planet, but if the ball had broken the window, then where were the children who had thrown it? Where were the culprits._

_The two boys looked at each other, smirking, and the smallest of the girls giggled almost inaudibly. They turned and scurried away from the scene, delighted that they would actually get away with this._

_One of the boys looked back over his shoulders, however, and his expression was grim. The weight of this world was already starting to settle on his young shoulders, and he somehow knew his carefree days were numbered. _

Max's eyes fluttered open slowly, taking in the surroundings. He was in his bed, covers twisted around him, the edges curled into balls in his fists. He slowly released the bedspread, inhaling and exhaling until his heartbeat slowed to normal.

He pushed himself into a sitting position and reached for the glass of water next to his bed. He'd gone down at some point earlier in the night to fetch the water, but now he couldn't remember when exactly that had been. Everything seemed jumbled in his mind.

He took a sip of the water and tried to shake away the fog in his brain. Strangely, and unbidden, he remembered when Liz had first set foot in his room, climbing in through the window. He'd asked her what she thought of the room, and she'd said it was very green.

He frowned and glanced around. It _was_ very green.

Rubbing his aching forehead, he leaned back against the pillows and sighed. Almost against his will, his eyes closed, shutting heavily, and he drifted back into sleep.

_Love was a very strange thing. It can make you blissfully happy… and it can make you uncontrollably livid._

"_What are you doing?" he demanded angrily, grabbing the young girl's arm._

_She spun around, blonde curls flying, blue eyes flashing. "What does it look like I'm doing?" she hissed, upset at being interrupted. One hand rested on the door to the side gate, she was clearly intending to leave the palace grounds._

"_You can't!" he protested. "My father specifically ordered you to stay in tonight. It is too dangerous for you…"_

_It is the Festival of Laris and I will not stay inside," she replied disdainfully. "Your father is merely overcautious, and I won't let his fear ruin my night." In the distance, they could hear the sound of laughter, singing, and cheering. The celebrations had started, the revelers were out._

"_We have enemies," he insisted. "You might be in danger."_

"_Danger? It is not as though I am the future Queen. We are _courting_, and that is all. No one has even mentioned the idea of a proposal or a wedding. And even if they did, it would not be for several years. We are both too young, and I will not let fear of something that hasn't even come to pass interfere with this."_

"_You might be the future Queen one day," he muttered under his breath. She stared at him, and he said firmly, "I worry about you. It is not just my father. I do not want anything to happen to you either."_

_She ran a hand over her skirt, smoothing the fine silk. "Nothing is going to happen to me," she replied in a softer voice. Then she turned and swept away from her friend, pushing the gate open and stepping through to the street._

_He reached out and caught her hand, and when she turned to him in fury, he dropped it as though he had been burned. For the first time, he wished that the side gate did not lead directly into the city. He wished that his father had had the foresight to place guards here. He wished that his friend would have more common sense and less stubbornness. _

"_Please…"_

"_I never wanted this," she said, gesturing to the palace. "All the courtiers, the ones who want to marry you… they want you because of the power. I don't want to marry a King, and most of the time I can't stand the fact that I am dating a prince. This _isn't_ me."_

_He sighed, knowing it was the truth. She never wanted to be Queen, and although a marriage to her would certainly make for a strong political move, although, if necessary, she would make a good Queen, it would make her miserable._

_But, for good or ill, she was dating a prince, and she had to accept that._

"_Think about what you are doing," he asked softly._

_But she shook her head. "I have thought about it." She paused, and met his eyes. "And I am joining the party. I will be back in the morning, long before anyone even notices I am gone. If you have a problem with it, you are more than welcome to tell your father." She refused to drop his gaze, and he was the first to look away. They both knew he would never do that._

_A beat later, and she turned and was gone, slipping into the night._

* * *

"_Tell me, Princess, why you look so glum?" the young man asked with a bow, approaching the statuesque princess. He extended a hand towards her, and she took it gently, smiling. With a grand sweep of his arm, he lead her to the center of the ballroom, and into the next dance._

_As they swirled in time to the music, she sighed and looked away from her dance partner, and toward her betrothed. "They will announce my betrothal soon," she murmured._

"_The General is a fine man. And your brother's second. That is quite a match," the man replied, smiling. But he could sense that there was something else, something that was bothering her, and he guessed, "You do not like arranged marriages?"_

"_For as long as our dynasty has existed, the Princess has married the King's second in command," she said. "I would hate to break tradition now." But there was bitterness in her voice, and irony, and something else he couldn't quite identify._

"_It is a strong tradition," he murmured, and she looked at him sharply, as though just then realizing that perhaps she had spoken out of turn._

"_I am apprehensive, Nicolas, that is all," she said at last, her voice demure. "I suppose all women are nervous before their betrothals." But, though she did not say it, there was something inside her of her that longed for the fairytale romance, the burning passion that she read about in myths and legends._

"_How long have I been your friend and confidant, my Princess?" the young man named Nicolas whispered into her ear. The music swelled in the background, the pace increasing slightly._

"_Forever," she replied, laughing. In fact, it had been only four years since he had come to court. As was customary, the sons of all Lords joined the royal court at the age of sixteen, and stayed their until they were married. Still, in those past four years, the Princess as the second son of the Lord of Illyria had become close friends ._

"_If we have been friends so long, my Princess, won't you humor me and admit to the truth?" he pressed._

_She sighed and shook her head slowly, looking away as they twirled across the dance floor. How could she tell him that she was not in love? Why did it even matter? She respected and admired the General, and that was all that was needed in a marriage. Besides, no Princess ever married for love, why should she be any different?_

_The young man smiled suddenly, conspiratorially, and said, "You know, Princess, my older brother Khivar is a good match as well, isn't he?"_

_She looked at him sharply, flushing a deep crimson red. He was smiling softly, and she couldn't help but return the grin, albeit worriedly._

"_Perhaps," she conceded._

Isabel's eyes opened slowly, and she stretched out her arms, feeling the pull of the muscles across her back. She glanced at the clock next to her bed and groaned, it was still the middle of the night. These strange dreams were twisting her sleep, and leaving her with feelings of unease and fear. Unlike the dreams that she had seen while dream-walking herself, these ones did not disappear completely when she awoke. Instead, they lingered, half-forgotten and no longer vivid, but still there.

She pushed herself out of bed and tiptoed from the room, down the hallway, and paused outside of her brother's room. She didn't want to wake him just to say that she'd been having strange dreams, but she couldn't shake the feeling that he would want to know.

She knocked gently, and almost instantly Max flung the door open. His eyes were shadowed with circles, and his hair stuck up in strange places. Exhaustion filled every line on his face.

"So you're not sleeping well either?" Isabel asked, almost laughing. Max did look rather comic at the moment.

"Dreams," Max said simply.

Isabel nodded and stepped into his room, closing the door behind her. "Me, too. They're strange… like… almost like memories, but not quite…"

"When I woke up, I couldn't remember the details of the dream, but the emotions… they were still there. And so overall themes… I was angry at Tess in one of them, and professing my love in another. I just… I don't remember the details."

"I was upset about something… something related to Michael…" Isabel said slowly, sighing as she tried to remember. "But the longer I'm awake, the foggier everything gets."

"What do you think it all means?" Max asked.

Isabel shrugs. "No idea," she replied. "But whatever it is, it's important." She hesitated, glancing at the window of Max's room, at the stars casting a faint light from the sky, then asked, "Do you think Michael and Tess are dreaming also?"

* * *

"_It is a great honor, my child, that the Prince is interested in your hand," the old man remarked, watching as his daughter carefully turned in a circle in front of the mirror, inspecting her reflection._

_She looked up at her father and nodded. "I know, Papa," she agreed. "And… I love him."_

_The old man smiled and kissed his daughter on her forehead. "It is good that this is happening now. I was afraid that I would not live to see you married. I did not want to leave my daughter alone in the world." He smiled reminiscently and added, "Your mother would be so proud."_

"_I am glad," she replied, and meant it._

"_Troubled times are upon us, and the planet will need a strong King to guide them. And the King will need a strong Queen to support him," the old man added. "You, my child, will make a truly marvelous Queen." He left the room, shutting the door slowly behind him._

_She watched him go, then turned back to the mirror. "I have no doubt I'll make a good Queen," she said with a reluctant sigh. "It does not take much to be a court ornament, a pretty woman to walk on the arm of the king."_

Tess opened her eyes with a groan and sat up in bed. The dream flitted around the edges of her unconscious, and for a moment she tried to remember the dream, but something else caught her attention. Staring at her closed door, she saw the tiniest line of light coming underneath it, signaling that the lights were on in the living room.

She got out of bed and walked softly to the door of her room. Pushing it open, she moved as silently possible down the hallway, pausing just at the entrance to the living room.

Jim was sitting on the sofa, looking at something, but she couldn't see what it was. He was rubbing his temples with one hand. He seemed upset, and she was instantly concerned.

"Jim?"

He started, and turned to her. "Oh, did I wake you up?" he asked apologetically. "I was trying to be quiet." He glanced around, as though expecting Kyle to appear as well.

"It's fine," Tess said, waving away his regret. "Are you okay?"

Jim nodded glumly. "Yeah, I'm fine. It's just… Deputy Fisher found Ms. Topolski's body in Fraiser Woods," he explained. "I have to go through the file and write up a report." He shrugged and added, "Looks like it might have been homicide."

Tess didn't say anything at first. Her thoughts were running wild. If the FBI killed Ms. Topolski, which they were all very certain was what had happened, why would they just leave her body lying in the woods? Unless they wanted it to be found?

Jim had been so close to dropping the case about the aliens, about the Crashdown shooting, on so many different occasions, but something always seemed to drag him back to it. Was this just the FBI's way of making sure that he was still investigating?

Except that he wasn't, not really. The offer to help Ms. Topolski had died when she did, and he hadn't really focused on that as much. There were too many other things to worry about, not the least of which was the reappearance of Sean and the effect that had had on his relationship with Amy DeLuca.

No, Tess realized, Jim hadn't been investigating anymore. And now there was almost no chance he'd be able to leave it alone. If he put two and two together, if he realized that Ms. Topolski was here because of the aliens… She hated to think what would happen then.

"Who would want to kill a guidance counselor?" Tess asked at last, knowing that she had to say something before Jim got suspicious of her silence.

"That," Jim replied grimly, "is what I intend to find out."

* * *

_In the darkness, he could almost smell the blood on the ground. It was getting late, and he was tired, but they still had a job to do. Slowly, he picked his way through the dying soldiers, crossing the battlefield in a crouch, staying hidden._

_The recent attacks were worrisome. Guerilla soldiers would appear out of nowhere in the hills, attacking anyone who tried to pass through. The royal city was almost completely surrounded by hills, and the rebel fighters had managed to cut off all ground transport to the city. The only safe way in and out of the city now was by air._

_After the murder of the old King, everyone had expected an all-out civil war. But, despite the fact that the king was clearly murdered, no one knew who the culprit was. There was no leader to these attacks either, no one to blame for all this warfare._

_And so the new King, his soon-to-be brother-in-law, had sent him to find out who was behind this. He had led the royal army into the hills, and they had been massacred. But they'd fought back, and taken many of their enemies with them to their graves. He and only a few others had survived the attack._

_But during the attack, he'd been able to analyze how the rebels were fighting, and from that, he had determined where their headquarters were most likely to be located in these woods. He'd sent the remaining royal soldiers home, but he still had a job to finish._

_He'd told the king who would discover who was behind this, and that was exactly what he planned on doing._

_Up ahead, he saw the flicker of light, saw something move. Two men were talking next to a vehicle, one of the newer hovercrafts that only nobles could afford._

_A noble was involved?_

_He crept closer, holding his breath, listening._

_And then he heard it. In the rise and fall of voices, barely more than a murmur, he heard a name._

"…_attack at the palace… well guarded… king is… declare war…"_

"_Yes, Khivar."_

_He inhaled sharply, his hands clenched into fists, as his lips formed the one word, the name of the traitor._

_Khivar._

* * *

Michael awoke abruptly, plunging back into full consciousness with a vague idea of the dream he had just had, a muddled memory of hills and blood and weapons. And the stark, sharp, crystal clear knowledge that he hated this man named Khivar.

Nasedo stood on the sidewalk and stared up at the window. The light was on in the room, and he could see the shadows of the King and Princess walking back and forth across the floor. He could tell, from their silhouettes, that they were confused, nervous, lost, and afraid.

He glanced up at the sky, at the faint light of the distant v-shaped constellation, and smiled.

* * *

Next Chapter: Visions and Nightmares

Due: Sun 7/22


	84. Visions and Nightmares

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: I don't really know anything about guns. Or firing them. So the entire part about guns… I made it all up. If you do know something about guns and you see glaring errors, please ignore them. Just imagine that it all makes sense.

* * *

Chapter Eighty-Three: Visions and Nightmares

Michael stared at Maria, one eyebrow raised in confusion. "French Club?" he asked, not quite understanding, not sure if this was a joke or not. "You want to go to French Club?"

"Yes," Maria said simply, rolling her eyes at her boyfriend. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Well… you don't take French," Michael pointed out bluntly. Ever since Sean had been outed as Nasedo, Maria had been acting unpredictably. Which was perfectly understandable and he kept telling himself that he was prepared to accept her erratic behavior until she had the necessary time to move on from that horrible shock, but really… French Club? He'd asked to meet her in the Eraser Room, and she wanted to go to _French Club_.

"Well, now's my chance to learn," Maria replied.

"But… but…" Michael just stared at her, not understanding anything. He couldn't think of anything else to say, and she had already turned and walked away by the time he realized she was gone.

Running a hand through his hair absently and trying to figure out what he was supposed to do now, he didn't notice Isabel until she was standing right beside him.

"Hey," Isabel said softly, pulling him from his thoughts.

Michael jumped. "Oh… hey, Izzy." He glanced around the hallway. It was only a few minutes after class had let out, and the place was still swarming with students. It wasn't safe to talk about his dreams here, but he really needed to tell someone about this latest one.

…_Khivar_…

He remembered almost nothing about the dream except for that name. And how much he hated it.

"I don't like class," Isabel stated sourly. It wasn't actually class she didn't like, it was school. Being here, in this building. Alex must have told Liz and Maria that they had broken up because the two girls kept frowning at her, or, in Maria's case, glaring angrily. Tess seemed to know as well, and she'd expressed her sympathies, although they didn't appear to be particularly heartfelt. Sara and Trudy had been talking about it at lunch, and she'd overheard two boys she didn't even know commenting on how they were pleased that she was available again so they could ask her out. Isabel wondered how many other people would say something to her about this before it was over.

"What's your problem?" Michael demanded, somewhat unkindly. He just wasn't in a great mood, and he didn't want to hear about other people's problems when he still had his own to deal with.

"Alex, Maria, and Liz are my problem," Isabel snapped back, reacting instinctively to Michael's hard tone. "God, why does everybody care that Alex and I broke up?"

"You're the one who wanted to be noticed, Isabel. Be careful what you wish for," Michael shot back, glancing over his shoulder in the direction Maria had gone. She had long since disappeared, and he ended up only staring at a mass of students milling about in the hall.

"What's wrong with _you_?" Isabel asked, hands on her hips.

"Look, now's not a good time," Michael replied, already turning away from her. "I've got other problems to worry about."

Isabel reached out and caught his arm, intending to stop him. As her hand brushed against her skin, she felt the tickle of something strange, some type of energy. She jumped away from him, almost afraid, and stared with wide eyes at her own hand.

"Isabel? What do you want?" Michael asked in annoyance, having not felt any of the energy. He stared at her, frustrated, but the feeling faded as he caught sight of her pale face. "Izzy?" he asked in a more gentle tone.

Isabel shook her head. "It's nothing," she replied, pulling backwards, away from him. "Go take care of whatever your problems were." She spun around and hurried away, knocking into Tess as she did so.

Tess, who had come to fine Isabel, frowned as her friend pushed past, then turned accusing eyes towards Michael. "What did you do?" she hissed.

"Nothing!" Michael protested. "I don't know why she was upset."

"Right," Tess drawled, rolling her eyes. "Like I really believe that."

Michael looked around, aware that a crowd was starting to form. Whenever Tess got defensive of her friends, whenever she decided to make a scene, people came to watch. Michael marveled inwardly at her ability to get people so wrapped up in her personal dramas without even trying.

And then it occurred to him that she obviously knew how to keep people out of her life as well, seeing as she managed to keep their secret for so long. So the only reason people were interested now was because she was letting them be interested.

"Do you really need attention so much that you get other people to watch your arguments?" Michael spat, crossing his arms over his chest.

Tess raised one perfectly-sculpted eyebrow and said coldly, "Do you always take out your bad mood _girls_?" She took a step closer to him and asked in a quieter, but still cold, voice, "What is wrong with you today?"

"I'm on edge. So sue me," Michael shot back. First Maria, then Isabel, now Tess. He didn't know how much more of it he could take.

"Yeah? Take it out on someone other than my friends," Tess retorted. "And leave Isabel alone, she's upset enough as it is."

"Because she couldn't get Alex to follow her around like a little lost puppy?" Michael murmured under his breath.

Tess narrowed her eyes angrily, her hands clenching into fists. She would have let the comment about Alex slide if that was the only thing Isabel was upset about. But the girl had told her all about the strange dreams, and how unsettled she had been. Max had been dreaming as well, and Tess had had a few of her own. Whatever this meant, it was important, and they couldn't afford to turn on each other right now. There was too much at stake, especially with Nasedo still out there.

Chris, standing in the crowd, eyed Tess apprehensively. He really liked the blonde teenager, and the few dates that they had gone on had been incredibly fun. If all went well, he was hoping they'd be able to make the transition from "dating" to a "relationship."

But he knew that, despite her good traits, Tess did have a temper.

Interceding quickly, he stepped in between Michael and Tess. He'd witnessed the early conversation between Michael and Maria, and remembering what that had been about, he remarked bitingly, "Because you're doing so much better with Maria? Or did she not just blow you off to go to French Club?" Before Michael had a chance to reply, he turned and placed his hand on Tess' shoulder. "Come on, let's get out of here," he suggested, and Tess nodded in agreement.

As the two of them walked away through the now thinning crowd, Tess glanced over her shoulder and Michael and sighed.

"You okay?" Chris asked. "You seem tense."

Yes, Tess mused inwardly, she was tense. And apparently, so were Michael and Isabel. She hadn't seen Max yet today, but if she had to guess, she'd say he was on edge as well.

What the hell was happening to them?

* * *

"Hello, beautiful," Max said, walking over to Liz's locker and leaning against the metal with a smile. "Isn't it a wonderful day?"

Liz glanced at him and frowned. "Are you drunk?" she demanded suspiciously.

"What? Can't a guy just be happy?" Max replied, stifling a laugh.

"What are you happy about?" Liz retorted cautiously.

Max kissed her on the cheek. "The sun is shinning, the birds are singing, the air is clear…"

Liz glanced across the hall at the double doors that lead into the parking lot. One of the doors was propped open, and through it she could see the gray sky. Pointing to the door, she said to Max, "It's raining outside. And there are no birds singing right now."

"Why so pessimistic?" Max wanted to know, shaking his head.

"Are you sure you aren't drunk?" Liz asked in concern.

Max sighed. "I'm trying to be happy. I guess I'm overdoing it a little."

"Only a little?" Liz replied with a grin. "Max, that didn't make me thing you were happy. That made me think you were insane." Then her expression sobered. "What's wrong?"

"I had some strange dreams last night," Max explained, closing his eyes for a moment, remembering. "I think they were Czechoslovakian related. I kept dreaming about…" he trailed off, not wanting to explain what he had seen.

But Liz gave him a shrewd look and whispered, "Tess?" Max looked at her sharply, and she elaborated, "Max, those flashes that I see when we kiss… Tess is in them. A lot. I've gotten used to the fact that she meant something to you in some other life. I've accepted it."

Max gave her a skeptical look. "Really?" he pressed.

Liz hesitated, then shook her head. "No, I guess not. I just… I just remind myself that you don't love her in that way anymore. And I… I want us to be able to talk about things that affect you. Even if they are Czechoslovakian related."

Max impulsively pulled Liz into a hug, pressing a kiss into her hair. He couldn't understand how he had ever been lucky enough to find someone like her.

Liz leaned back and looked up at him. "Maybe these dreams of your are just like the flashes I have. Memories."

"Memories of what?" Max asked in frustration. He glanced around the hallway, then lowered his voice. There was almost no one there anymore, they'd all left already, so there was very little chance that anyone would be around to overhear their conversation. But he didn't want to take chances.

"What do you mean?"

"How could I have memories of something at all? Liz, I was six when I came out of those pods. I couldn't have had any life at all before this. It just doesn't make sense." Max rubbed the back of his head and leaning against the lockers again. "It doesn't make sense," he repeated.

"I told you, I think it is some sort of past life," Liz said with a shrug. "It's the only way it makes sense."

"Do you believe in past lives?" Max asked. "Because that seems more like a Maria-type idea to me."

Liz smiled. "Yeah, well… she believes in them also." After pausing for a moment, she added, "I don't know, Max. But I know that these dreams and these flashes… if they feel real to you, then they probably are real. And you're getting them all now for a reason. You just have to figure out what the reason is."

"Easier said than done," Max muttered, leaning in towards Liz. They were only a hair's breath away when the sound of echoing footsteps on the ground caused Max to step back, and turn away. Liz frowned, disappointed, but didn't say anything, as she too shifted her gaze to the newcomer.

It was Tess.

"Have you seen Isabel?" she asked.

Max opened his mouth to reply, then closed it, worried. At any other point in time, Tess would have mocked them, making some callous or joking comments about catching them in an almost-kiss. For her to opt out of that, she had to be upset. What had her so worried about Isabel?

"No, we haven't," Liz replied, and something in her voice caused Tess to look at her sharply.

"Lay off," Tess snapped. "I don't care how upset you are that she and Alex broke up. Give it a rest."

"Don't talk to her like that," Max cut in angrily, glaring at Tess.

Tess looked at him coldly. "Your sister is having confusing and upsetting dreams that she can't explain. Her boyfriend has just broken up with her, Michael was a complete jerk to her, I've already told her all about our new set of problems so she's probably stressed about that, and her own brother is too busy kissing Liz Parker to care."

Max ignored the comment directed at him and focused on a different piece of information. "What do you mean about a new set of problems? What did you tell Isabel?"

"Just that one of Jim's deputies found Ms. Topolski's body in the woods," Tess answered, glancing around the hallway quickly. In a softer voice, she continued, "And Isabel and I both think it was planted there for someone to find."

"By the FBI?" Liz asked.

Tess shot her a quick glance and nodded. "According to Maria, they are the ones that killed her. Why would they just leave her body around unless they wanted it to be found?"

"Why didn't you tell me this before?" Max asked suddenly, furious.

"Because it was the middle of school and I couldn't very well interrupt class to inform you and everyone else that the FBI is killing our guidance counselors. I think people might get suspicious," Tess answered dryly, rolling her eyes at the question.

"You could have told me at lunch," Max rejoined quickly, eyes flashing. "If you weren't too busy listening to Isabel sob over how much she screwed up her own life…"

"Alex broke up with her! _Not_ the other way around," Tess spat, glowering at him.

"Stop it!" Liz jumped into the conversation. Her raised voice brought Tess and Max back to their senses, and they stared at each other in confusion. Liz, oblivious to their bewilderment, demanded, "What is wrong with you? Why are you both acting like this?"

Tess looked away. Instead of answering the question, she said softly, "If you see Isabel, tell her I'm looking for her." And she walked away, leaving a puzzled Liz and a worried Max behind.

Liz turned to Max. "Max?"

"I don't know, Liz. I don't know why we're like this."

Liz rested a hand on his arm and said, "You'll figure it out." Then she corrected herself, "_We'll_ figure it out." She leaned in to kiss him, their lips brushing against each other.

And Max saw a flash of light, a black sky, and a brilliant v-shaped constellation.

* * *

Deputy Pierce handed the file to Sheriff Valenti and waited patiently for instructions. The Sheriff flipped through the documents, his eyes narrowing as he read. He skimmed over the coroner's and forensics reports, glanced at the birth certificate, transcripts from college, and the list of past employers. Shaking his head, he stared at the final document in the file, an application to Roswell High School.

Raining his eyes to his deputy, he wondered how much he should say. He knew that Ms. Topolski had been an FBI agent, but Fisher did not, and he didn't want to let the cat of the bag too early.

"Cause of death was definitely the bullets?" Valenti asked at last, running a finger over the first page of the coroners report, stopping at the sentence that listed cause of death.

"Yes, sir," Fisher replied. "As you can see by the forensics report, the bullets were matched to a standard 9 millimeter semi-automatic pistol. They're not difficult to come by, but the bullets in this one do suggest that the gun was high quality."

"So it really could be a random violent crime in the woods," Valenti murmured.

"Maybe, but whoever shot the victim had good skill with the gun," Fisher replied. "The bullet made a straight bee-line path through the left side of her chest and directly into the left aorta near the junction for pulmonary circulation. She died almost instantly."

Valenti rubbed his eyes. "Then we're looking at someone who knows how to shoot a gun."

"Yes, sir," Fisher replied. "Although, there are a lot of people in Roswell who have guns, aren't there? I heard that hunting used to be a big past time here."

Valenti considered, this, then shook his head. "Yes, but hunting is done mainly with riffles, especially in these parts. And although it takes a good deal of skill to fire rifle, it's not the same type of skill for a pistol." He let his hand rest on the holster at his waist as he thought. "And we're talking about someone who knows how to fire a pistol."

"Who carries pistols?" Fisher asked pointedly. "They're not standard issue around here, for either law enforcement or citizens."

It wasn't a common gun in these parts, Valenti had to admit.

He put the file down on his desk, thinking. He couldn't help but wonder if there was a connection between Deputy Hannigan's death and Ms. Topolski's. Granted, Hannigan hadn't been shot… in fact, Valenti still didn't know exactly how his deputy had died. But first a deputy then an FBI agent get murdered in his otherwise sleepy little town…

And how did any of this tie in with Michael Guerin and Max Evans? Liz Parker and the shooting?

Before she had disappeared, Ms Topolski had been investigating Michael Guerin. And she'd wanted Valenti in on the conversation. If he'd taken the bait sooner, he might have had more to go on, but he'd been reluctant.

So where did that leave him?

He sincerely doubted that Michael, Max, Liz, or Isabel had the ability to shoot a pistol as well as whoever had killed Ms. Topolski. Fisher was right, that _was_ a good shot. But it was also unlikely that they were not in some way involved in this. It was just too much of a coincidence otherwise, and he had stopped believing in those a long time ago.

He thought back over the year. So many times, he had decided to drop this investigation. He wasn't even sure why he had made those decisions, the case had just lost interest for him. And he'd been preoccupied by trying to be a good father to Kyle and Tess, by trying to help Mr. Evans fix Michael Guerin's living situation, by trying to win Amy back from Sean. And yet, every time he wanted to drop it, something brought it back, reminding him of what had happened.

"Sir? What are your orders?" Fisher asked, his voice pulling Valenti from his musings.

"Trace the bullets," Valenti said at last. "We'll start from there."

"Yes, sir," Fisher replied, and slipped out of the office.

Valenti watched his deputy leave and sighed. He still had no idea who had killed Hannigan, and he hated running into Mrs. Hannigan and having no information for her. And now he had another dead person to deal with, and he doubted solving this case would be any easier.

He pulled out the file on Michael Guerin, the one he had discarded months ago when he first decided to drop the case.

Maybe it was time he started digging a little deeper.

* * *

Liz frowned as she noted that Isabel had decided to sit in her section of the Crashdown. As a waitress, she couldn't very well ignore a customer, but as Alex's friend, she had no desire to serve Isabel. Straightening her antennas and brushing a hand over her bright uniform, she took a breath and walked over to Isabel.

"What can I get for you?" she said, tying to sound polite.

"Just a Coke, please," Isabel replied, and her voice sounded slightly stuffy.

On closer inspection, Liz realized that Isabel looked as though she was about to cry. Her blonde hair was loose, and partially hiding her eyes, but Liz could still see the distress glimmering in them.

She wasn't sure if she felt pity or anger. On the one hand, she knew that Isabel was dealing with a lot. On the other hand, she'd brought the break up with Alex on herself, and Liz couldn't feel too sorry for her about that one.

"Fine," Liz said, still maintaining her civility. "One Coke, coming up."

As Liz walked away, Isabel licked her dry lips and unconsciously pulled at a strand of hair. She was tired, despite sleeping quite a lot the night before. The dreams had not been restful, and she awoke with a sense of foreboding and anxiety. She knew that the others had been dreaming as well, but she also knew that this was harder for her than it was for them. It brought up too many memories of being stuck in dreams she couldn't escape, and she would wake with a start in the morning, her heart beating frantically, her breath coming in uneven gasps.

Why was she so on edge? What was happening to them all?

Liz set the Coke down in front of her and she stared at it for the longest time, as though having difficulty remembering exactly what to do with a Coke. Then she looked up and offered Liz a wan smile.

"Thanks," she managed. She wasn't really thirsty anymore, but, then, she hadn't really been thirsty in the first place. She just needed something to do that didn't involve listening to people talk about her break up with Alex.

Unfortunately, that appeared to be exactly what Liz wanted to do.

"Look, Isabel, if you just talk to Alex, maybe you can…"

"No," Isabel said quickly, harshly. She instantly regretting sounding so mean, Liz had only been trying to help. Softening her voice, she added, "I don't want to."

"Why not?" Liz asked, hands on her hips. "Don't you want to be with Alex?"

Isabel considered this. It was the most important question, and somehow she couldn't answer it. She did want to be with Alex, she knew that. She really, really liked him. But could she be with him at the expense of all of her new friends?

"If they don't accept you because though you are dating Alex, they aren't your friends," Liz said firmly.

Isabel lifted her gaze to Liz and asked dryly, "And is Alex won't accept me because they are my friends…? How is that okay?"

"Because Alex isn't a snob or a jerk," Liz replied quickly.

Isabel almost started laughing. "Liz, you dated Kyle. You were subjected to those 'snobs' for a long time, and you didn't break up with Kyle until you started going out with Max. You didn't have any intention of leaving Kyle, and yet you can't understand why I might want to stay friends with them?"

Liz considered this thoughtfully. Isabel did have a point, she had continued to date Kyle even when she came to the realization that his friends would never fully accept her. They weren't out rightly mean to her… well, not most of the time. They seemed to understand that Kyle liked her, and they accepted that, even if they didn't like it. They just… had a way of being unpleasant.

And she hadn't broken up with him until Max healed her.

How was this different?

"It's different because I knew that Kyle was friends with them long before we started dating," Liz said finally. "I knew exactly what I was getting myself into, and I did it anyway. Alex has liked you since before you were friends with Tess' group, and if your body language around him is any clue, you've lived him for just as long. Then all of a sudden you become this different person and still expect Alex to like you."

Isabel shook her head. "I'm not that different," she protested, pulling at the strands of her hair.

Liz rolled her eyes. "Right."

Isabel folded her arms over her chest and leaned back in her seat. Staring defiantly at Liz, she asked, "Why is everyone so determined to tell me that I shouldn't want this?"

"Why do you want it?" Liz shot back.

"Because I am so damn tired of hiding," Isabel replied, struggling to keep her voice low so that other people wouldn't overhear her. "All my life, every choice has been dictated by the fact that I have to stay hidden. That there are enemies out there. I have lied to everyone, my friends, my parents, the sheriff. All because of this stupid physiological difference that I never asked for, never wanted. Once, just once, I want to feel like I am something other than Isabel Evans… Czechoslovakian. They I could be important for something other than my biology. Why does everyone begrudge me that?"

"Because we miss the person you used to be," Liz said instantly, automatically.

"What person?" Isabel asked, dropping her voice even lower. "The one who lies? Who manipulates? Who says to hell with everything that could possibly compromise my safety?" She gestured for Liz to bend over, and then whispered into the brunette's ear, making sure that her voice was almost inaudible and impossible for anyone else to hear, "The Hardings, Deputy Hannigan, Dr. Drake, Maria's father, Ms. Topolski… these are all people who are dead because of the people we are. Maybe Sara, Jessica, and Trudy aren't good people, but they've never gotten anyone killed."

Liz straightened and swallowed nervously, studying Isabel closely. The alien looked as though she was about to fall apart, and Liz couldn't blame her. None of this could be easy, and the guilt was slowly eating away at them.

Isabel looked down at the table. It was impossibly hard for her to live with all this knowledge of all the lives that they had inadvertently ruined… not because she felt sorry for them, but because she knew that, had she had all this to do over, knowing what the outcome of every choice would be, she'd make all the same choices, ruin all the same lives, if it meant keeping her family safe.

"I'm not thirsty anymore," Isabel said softly, pushing the Coke away. She stood up and looked around the diner. "I'll see you around, Liz." And she walked away.

* * *

_The room was white. So white it hurt the eyes. There was nothing there but the emptiness of the whiteness, the stark nothingness of the well-designed cage-room._

_White._

_Pain._

_People moving, faces obscured, surrounding and stepping away, movements, fragments, blurred images, fear…_

_White._

Tess woke with a start and rolled over in her bed. She glanced around the dark room, listening to the sound of her own ragged breathing, the rapid beating of her heart. Slowly, she pulled herself out of bed and walked to the window. Leaning her forehead against the cool glass, she stared up at the sky and sighed. Her eyes roamed over the different constellations as she idly wondered, as she often did, if one of the stars was her home.

Something seemed to flicker and she turned her eyes towards it, frowning. It was a faint constellation, v-shaped, that had caught her eye. As she stared at it, she felt a tug, something pulling at her. But then the feeling was gone.

_White._

_Pain._

She rubbed her temples as the remnants of the dream floated through her mind.

What did all this mean?

* * *

Next Chapter: Constellation V

Due: Sun 7/29


	85. Constellation V

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: I'm introducing Hubble into this chapter, but he's not going to be exactly the same as the Hubble on the show. I've played around with his character a bit to fit with my story better.

* * *

Chapter Eighty-Four: Constellation V

"Have you kissed Isabel?"

Alex started, surprised by the question, and gave Maria a confused glance. She was staring at him with a blunt expression, and the simple look in her eyes conveyed to him that he had not misheard her question; she really did want to know if he had kissed Isabel.

"Um…yes," Alex said slowly, hesitantly.

"Did you… see anything?" Maria ventured, twisting a napkin in her hands nervously, not entirely sure if she wanted the answer to that question. They were sitting in the Crashdown, talking, over onion rings and milkshakes, about their screwed-up love lives.

"See anything?" Alex mimicked, now completely lost by her line of questioning. "What do you mean?"

"Liz sees things," Maria said with a shrug. "From Max's past. I just…" She paused, then elaborated, "I just wondered if it was only a Liz-and-Max thing, or if other people had seen things to."

Alex shook his head. "I haven't gotten any flashes," he replied.

"Oh… okay," Maria nodded. That made her feel a little better. Maybe that fact that she didn't see bursts of light or pieces of Michael's life or whatever wasn't a reflection on the validity of their relationship. Maybe there was just something different about Liz and Max.

Although, that thought left her wondering why Liz was more special than she was, and why didn't she deserve to get flashes as well.

She picked at her onion rings, not especially hungry. "I wonder why only Liz and Max get them," she said, pulling the fried batter carefully away from one ring. She stared at the thin strip of onion in her hand, and, on a strange impulse, rubbed it between her fingers, shredding it to pieces. "Why not the rest of us?"

"Who knows," Alex answered in an uninterested tone. He really didn't care about flashes seeing as he wasn't about to start kissing Isabel any time soon. He couldn't quite understand how things had gone downhill so quickly, but he did sense that his short lived relationship with her might be quickly coming to an end. The thought both saddened and relieved him; he couldn't stand much more of this long, dragged-out ending. If Isabel cared too much about her reputation with her new friends to be with him, he wasn't going to stand in her way.

Unfortunately, that determination did nothing to ease the growing ache as he thought of Isabel breaking up with him and dating someone else… some jock, some friend of Kyle's, some football player with perfect hair and no brains.

Maria, oblivious to Alex's thoughts, continued to peel apart her onion rings. Maybe she was worried about nothing, maybe these flashes weren't even that important. Who cared if she didn't ever see any of Michael's past? She knew about his present, wasn't that enough?

But she couldn't help but wish that she had seen a flash, that she had gotten a taste of what Michael had been like at a different time, and she envied Liz for her brief glimpses into Max's world.

* * *

Nasedo watched from the shadows as Jim Valenti locked the door to the Sheriff's office and stepped out into the street. The Sheriff had to files tucked under his arm, and his face wore a contemplative expression. He was walking with a purpose, the way someone walks when they know they have something to do.

Nasedo waited until Valenti had climbed into his car, waited until the engine had roared to life, waited until the car disappeared around the far corner of the street.

Then he stepped out into the light.

Valenti was asking questions again. This was going to be a problem. He couldn't allow new variables to be introduced into the equation, not now that he was so close.

Walking determinedly towards the Sheriff's office, he wondered how exactly he would go about keeping the Sheriff away from the truth. Only a few weeks ago, he might have simply killed the meddlesome law enforcement officer rather than risk him exposing the truth. Unfortunately, now that the royals were so suspicious of his motives, he couldn't do anything to further upset them. He could only imagine how harshly Tess would react to those particular actions.

No, for now he would have to remove the Sheriff from the scenario in other, less permanent, ways.

He waved his hand over the door and the lock fell open. Pushing the door open, he pursed his lips and surveyed the waiting room he had stepped into. A quick look informed him that there were no security cameras to worry about, and as long as he stayed away from the windows, the alarms would not go off.

He walked towards the far door that lead into the office itself. His eyes had easily adjusted to the dim light, allowing him to see in far greater detail than any of the humans who worked here. Since he didn't need to turn on any lights, he wasn't worried about detection from the outside, and he was fairly certain he was alone within the building.

He paused at one of the desks outside the Sheriff's office. It belonged to the newest deputy in town. He traced his fingers over the single file folder in the center of the desk, feeling the stiff paper underneath his hand. Deputy Fisher was an efficient and organized man, as proven by his neat and tidy desk. But he was the one who had discovered Agent Topolski's body, he was the one who had interested the Sheriff in this alien case again. And that made him a dangerous man as well.

For more reasons than one, Deputy Fisher would have to be removed as well.

He moved towards the door when the sound of footsteps on the pavement outside caught his attention and he quickly melted into the shadows of the room, his yellow eyes turned towards the front door, waiting.

Had he remembered to lock the door behind him? Was it the Sheriff or a deputy coming back to check on something? He could easily shape-shift into someone else, someone who was supposed to be here, but would whoever this newcomer was ask questions about why the lights weren't on?

He heard the doorknob rattle, but not open. He smiled in satisfaction at that, apparently he had remembered to lock the door.

But then the lock fell open, not by the turn of a key, but by some outside source, and he knew it was an alien on the other side.

He held his breath.

The door swung slowly open, followed by the sound of soft footsteps on the floor. Crouching on his hands and knees in the shadowed corners, Nasedo could see the flash of blue eyes and blonde curls and knew who had come in the door.

Tess closed the door behind her and looked around the office. She knew that Jim was on his way home right now, so it was as good a time as any to look through his files and see what he knew about Ms. Topolski's death. If anyone came in, she could simply say that she was looking for Jim, but apparently he'd gone home and he must have left the door unlocked by accident.

She paused in the center of the room, however, as some strange feeling tugged at the edges of her mind. Her heartbeat raced as she realized it was a warning, and she bit her bottom lip and took a deep breath, willing the fear and anger to dissipate.

Then she said in a calm and steady voice, "You hurt either Jim or Kyle, shape-shifter, and I will _kill_ you."

Nasedo stood up. He looked at Tess impassively and said, "You're father and brother are threats. The Sheriff gets closer and closer to the truth every day. How much longer do you think you can hide it from him?"

Tess raised her eyes to meet him, and even in the dark room she could see the cold smirk in his gaze, the calculating look behind his eyes. "Stay away from them. I don't care how close either of them gets to the truth, you stay away from them." Her voice shook with rage and the unspoken threat lingered in the air between them.

"So protective," Nasedo scorned her. "And what will you do when your _family_ becomes a threat? They certainly won't stand by you when they discover the truth about what you are and what you've done to keep them in the dark. What will you do when they turn on you?"

"What makes you think they will?" Tess countered.

Nasedo laughed, giving her a mockingly indulgent smile. "The naiveté of your group never ceases to amaze me," he said. "They will turn on you because they are human, and all humans inevitably become afraid of what they do not understand."

"Liz, Maria, and Alex haven't," Tess muttered, thinking it was ironic that she was using the three people she really didn't like as a justification for keeping the two people she most loved safe.

"Just wait," Nasedo whispered, taking a step towards her. Tess took an involuntary step backwards, and Nasedo asked cruelly, "What's the matter? Are you afraid?"

"I'm not afraid of you," Tess said with more bravery than she felt.

"That's good," Nasedo replied. "Because I'm not the one you should be afraid of."

* * *

Agent Pierce stared at the pile of papers on his desk, lost in his own thoughts, as the door to his office swung open. He glanced up, and nodded, giving Agent Willis permission to enter the room.

"Report," he instructed, still staring at the papers.

"The Sheriff is, as you expected, asking questions again," Willis said smoothly, crossing his arms over his chest in a very satisfied manner. "I presume that was the point of ensuring that Agent Topolski's body be found?"

Pierce was not in the mood to gloat. "I know he is asking questions," he said sharply. "What I was to know is what questions is he asking? And how close is he to getting the answers?" He had all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, but they simply were not fitting together the way he had hoped.

"Primarily about Michael Guerin and the Evans children. Their past," Willis replied. "He has not yet given any indication that he may suspect Tess Harding of any involvement."

"Good. We need to keep it that," Pierce said thoughtfully.

"Are you sure, sir?" Willis asked, knowing it was dangerous to question Pierce. Still, he needed to bring up this question, just in case he was thinking more clearly than his supervisor. "He would feel great betrayal should he discover that his own daughter has doubled-crossed him. He may be more malleable to our wishes."

"Perhaps," Pierce consented, "but after the initial shock has worn off, his inclination could be to protect his daughter at all costs. We cannot risk underestimating his feelings for his family." He paused, then sighed. It was part of the reason he had instructed all his agents to keep their investigation of Tess Harding as secret as possible. Should any knowledge of her involvement reach the Sheriff, his behavior would not be predictable.

Willis shrugged. "There is one other lead." Pierce looked up with interest and Willis continued, "You asked me to look into possibilities of who the shape-shifter may be…" He sighed, and said slowly, "Sean Everett body was found two days ago… on the East Coast. And… apparently he had been dead for at least a month, probably longer."

Pierce leaned back in his seat, intertwining his fingers. "So the Mr. Everett who shows up here pretending to be Maria DeLuca's father is, in fact, an imposter."

"And he's gone now. Left almost a month ago," Willis added. "Maybe the others figured out that he wasn't the real Mr. Everett. I heard it was a very rapid departure. Very sudden."

"Yes," Pierce said thoughtfully. "That is true." The shape-shifter was turning out to be a much cleverer adversary than he had originally intended, but he was not that concerned anymore. Everything was in place, all they needed was the right opportunity.

"This Max Evans is the leader of the group as far as I can tell," Willis added. Pierce didn't seen to care about that, but he knew it was important, so he continued anyway. "He's the one who holds things together. The thing is, I don't think anyone else in the group realizes that right now. If he were to be… removed… from the equation, the others would fall into disarray."

That caught Pierce's attention. "Removed? We can't simply walk in and kill him." They didn't know what the others were capable of, or how many aliens were actually out there. They couldn't do anything until they were completely sure that the ramifications would not reach them.

"I wasn't thinking of killing him. Or even physically removing him. Just… give him something else to be concerned about." Willis hesitated, then said, "He works for Brody Davis at the UFO Center. If his boss should get… say… distracted…" He didn't finish the sentence, didn't need to.

Pierce smiled and stood up quickly. "How is Mr. Davis' daughter doing? I hear that treatment for leukemia can be quite… painful," he murmured softly. "Perhaps we should pay her a little visit…"

"We will need to do it without causing any suspicion…"

"I think," Pierce said, smiling like that cat that had caught the canary, "that it is time Mr. Hubble paid a visit to Roswell."

* * *

Max shoved the last of Brody's newest assortment of paraphernalia to the side of the exhibit and frowned. He had hoped that this shipment of alien-related artifacts and information would yield something useful to him, but so far it hadn't.

Then something caught his eye, the slip of paper caught underneath one of the boxes. It must have fluttered out when he opened the box, and he probably just hadn't noticed it. He bent down and tugged it free from the cardboard, carefully unfolding it and smoothing the creases.

It was the print out of a website. At the bottom corner, he caught the same of the website, and made a mental note to look into the site later. Then he looked back up at the rest of the page.

In the center of the page was a drawing of several dots arranged in a v-shape. Each one was labeled with numbers and letters which he recognized from all his work with Brody as the coordinates for stars location in space. The picture was so familiar, so important, that he could barely tear his eyes away.

This was it. This was the constellation he kept seeing.

He hurried over to the far wall and stared at the star chart that Brody had insisted be displayed. Glancing back and forth between the paper in his hand and the chart on the wall, he began mapping out the location of the stars in his mind.

Then he stopped, confused. If these coordinates were right, the stars were much too far away to be seen from Earth. But… he knew he had seen glimpses of this constellation in the sky before, the faint flicker of these particular stars. How was that possible if the stars were so far away?

"Max? What are you doing?" Brody asked, stepping out of the backroom and walking over to Max.

Max held up the paper. "Just checking the coordinates of these," he said, attempting to sound casual. "They are coordinates, right?"

Brody scanned the paper. "Yeah," he said. "By the looks of it, though, the stars would be pretty far away."

Max nodded. "That's what I figured out," he agreed. "They're out of range so we wouldn't be able to see them from Earth."

"They mean something, though," Brody said thoughtfully. "I've seen references to those before somewhere… some author… I don't remember…" Brody seemed lost in thought for a moment, mulling through the memories of his part, trying to determine why this constellation was familiar.

Max, venturing a guess he was already sure was the right answer, suggested, "James Atherton?"

"Right!" Brody said, his face lighting up. "He talked a lot about that. Some people have suggested that this lost manuscript might even have an explanation for why that constellation is important." Then he sighed and added, "But I think it's probably obvious. It must be the home of some other alien species, we just don't have the technology to reach the place…"

Max nodded absently, not really paying attention anymore. He was staring at the paper. There wasn't anything on it besides the constellation and the web address at the bottom.

Turning back to Brody, he asked, "Have you been to this website? Is it any good?"

Brody shrugged. "I don't know. It closed down a few years ago. I'm not sure why, but the rumor is that the government interfered with it. I guess they were getting too close to the truth." He wandered away from Max, glancing around at the rest of the exhibits, running a critical eye over the new displays Max had set up.

Max watched Brody for a moment, then surreptitiously tucked the paper into his pocket. He'd look into this more when he had the time. He wasn't sure what he would find, since the website had been shut down…

"Brody?" Max called, spinning around suddenly. "If the website was shut down a few years ago, where did this paper come from? It was with the new boxes, not any of the old stuff."

Brody gave Max an appraising stare, then sighed and said, "I suppose you would have found out sooner or later." He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away for a moment, as though trying to gather his thoughts.

"Found out what?"

"It was sent to me by an… _associate_ of mine," Brody said slowly, emphasizing the term 'associate' distastefully. "His name is Hubble. I knew him several years ago, before I came to Roswell. He considers himself a professional alien hunter…" Again, his tone left little doubt that he did not think highly of the man. "He's one of those… _professional men_… You know, the ones who sell their ideas and knowledge for power. Tried to buy a lot of senators back in the day…" He trailed off, shaking his head. "But he only has use for the stuff that makes him popular. Anything that he can't use to further his own cheap reputation…"

"Why did he send this to you?" Max asked curiously, fishing the constellation out of his pocket. If Brody thought it odd that he had pocketed it, he said nothing, and Max didn't volunteer an explanation.

"He has always been interested in the Roswell crash," Brody explained. "And according to Atherton, that constellation is somehow related to the crash. We disagreed over it… Atherton's a fool. He might know a few small details, but most of his writings is just propaganda. Trying to sell his own name. But Hubble thought he was on to something, and wanted my help. He knew I was coming to Roswell, knew I was desperate because of Sydney. I refused to work with him, and he was upset."

Max was silent, digesting this news. He knew for a fact that Atherton had known a lot more than anyone else gave him credit for, but he couldn't tell Brody this without raising suspicion. Besides, Atherton had been consider an extremist by most believers, and perhaps it was better if it remained that way. If his theories were taken seriously, someone might start looking too closely at Roswell, and they already had enough to contend with between Nasedo and the FBI.

But what interested Max even more than that was this side of the alien-believers world he hadn't seen before. Most of his research in that area had turned up websites and books about how the evil government had covered up information to keep the truth about aliens from being leaked to the public. He hadn't realized that there was such dissent among conspiracy-theorists.

Brody took the paper from Max and stared at it. "I don't know how Hubble got his hands on any information from the website. He has ties in the government, though, so it could have been through that. Either way, this was his way of _reminding_ me what he was interested in. I think he might be considering coming to Roswell, and he wants to see if I've changed my mind. Come to my senses, so to speak." He had a far away look in his eyes as he spoke. "He's powerful. You don't want to cross Hubble."

He handed the paper back to Max. "You're welcome to do any research you want about that, but stay away from Hubble. He's dangerous, and he's a cheap sellout. A fraud." He walked away, and Max folded the paper carefully, mulling over everything he had learned.

* * *

Michael opened his eyes slowly, confused as to where he was. It took a moment as the blurry shapes of his room took form, as he realized that he was lying in his own bed. Everything here was familiar, and yet somehow different, as though he didn't quite belong here.

He stood, slowly. His dreams had been filled with battles and death, but the distinct details were fading into vague feelings and notions now, and he couldn't remember any of the specifics.

The clock on the wall struck three o'clock, and he turned towards the window. The stars were shining, and the moon gave the night of bright was of white light. As he stared at the sky, he saw a flash of orange, a blood-red sky, and had the strangest sensation of falling.

As the images faded, he couldn't help but shiver in surprise and slight apprehension at his strange brush with the unknown.

* * *

Tess sat in front of her mirror. She hadn't gone to sleep. Not because she wasn't tired, but because every time she closed her eyes, she saw white and silver and felt a surge of pain and fear.

She closed her eyes for a moment, and felt, rather than heard, a string of words slide through her mind. _Love you_, and _be careful_, and _I'm sorry_ and _it's too late_. She opened her eyes again, stared at her own reflection in the mirror, and saw another faded flash, a mesh of greens and blues piled together against a red background, the glint of sun on reflecting off of weapons, a shout of fear.

She ran a hand through her hair, watching her own blue eyes stare at nothing, and wondered when all this was going to start making sense.

* * *

Max awoke abruptly, and threw the covers off his bed. He was burning hot, his body covered in sweat. Images of Tess, of fiery red skies and jello-like water, of strange symbols, all flashed through his mind as he struggled out of bed.

The door to his room suddenly flew open, and Isabel appeared, her blonde hair pulled back from her face in a hasty ponytail, her eyes alight with something strange and foreign. He stared at her, seeing both his sister and something else; something older and wiser and exotic.

"Max…? What's happening?" she whispered.

Max shook his head, he had no answer to give. "I don't know," he murmured. "I don't know."

* * *

Next Chapter: Miniature Heartbreak

Due: Sun 8/5


	86. Miniature Heartbreak

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: I don't really have much to say here... so on with the story.

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Chapter Eighty-Five: Miniature Heartbreak

Inside the flesh, inside the bone, the brownish red marrow sits, heavy and leaden, a mass of tiny cells, little factories, that slowly and steady pump blood into the bloodstream. The smaller of the blood cells, the red ones, rush into the stream with the crazed, bouncing pressure of rambunctious children. They bounce off of the sides of veins and arteries, spill into the thin capillary tubes, rushing around and around and around, carrying oxygen to each vital organ. The larger cells, the white blood cells, move with the slow deliberation of hunters, seeking out the foreign particles, the allergens, the bacteria, the viruses. They are oblivious to the constant harried movement of the red blood cells, moving with gentle grace, flowing leisurely through their lives. Until the moment the threat is spotted, the entire immune system rushes to respond, the white blood cells crashing first onto the scene of the crime, attacking everything in sight.

At least, that's how it's supposed to work.

Occasionally, something goes wrong. The bone marrow, the little factories, don't work quite right. Instead of releasing fully matured white blood cells, they send weak, unformed ones out into the bloodstream. Unable to complete their duties with the same precision and force of the adult white blood cells, these defective ones allow some dangers to slip by, unseen, and wreak havoc on the body. In response, the immune system sends messages to the bone marrow, asking for more white blood cells. And more are produced and released, and the cycle continues because these ones do not work any better than the first. And the bloodstream becomes infused with immature white blood cells, too many, too much. The body can't handle it, can't function with all these cells clogging it's veins and arteries, and the body turns on itself, the organs failing, the heart growing weary with it's constant pumping of ineffective cells, the lungs gasping for oxygen that never makes it through the body anyway.

There are some treatments for this… Chemotherapy, radiation, medication, bone marrow transplants.

Sometimes the treatments work. Sometimes the people get better.

Sometimes they don't.

Sometimes the body just gives up. Just fails. The kidneys and liver go, followed by the spleen, and the final blowout comes from the tired heart. Sometimes everything just collapses, ending the single human life that depended on those white blood cells.

People don't die from the leukemia. They die from everything else.

Sydney opened tired eyes and felt the heat radiating from her body, the burning sensation behind her eyes, the bruises that marred her pale arms and legs. The signs of the battle with an illness she was fighting.

Beside her, her father sat on the edge of her bed, watching her fade in and out of sleep, the look on his face one of indescribably anguish. She closed her eyes so that she would not have to see him, not have to live with the knowledge that every moment she grew closer to death, he lost a part of himself as well.

He was with her every night well she slept, and she knew he would still be sitting there when she fully awoke in the morning.

* * *

_Isabel watched in amusement as the little blonde-haired boy raced up and down the gently sloping sand dune, excitement evident on his beautiful features. At the top of the dune, he turned and looked back at her, grinning, and called, "Come on, Mama! Hurry!"_

_Isabel picked up her pace slightly, but found that even with a quicker stride, she could not catch up to the boy, who was forever just a little ways beyond her. She began to worry she would lose the child before she even knew who exactly he was._

"_Look, look!" the boy cried, ecstatic, pointing small chubby fingers towards a distant figure._

"_What is it?" Isabel asked, attempting to draw near the boy._

_He looked at her and laughed. "Silly, Mama. You know who it is. It's Daddy!" And he took off running, small legs carrying him over the ground._

_And abruptly the distant figure was standing in front of her, holding the child, _their_ child, in his arms. Isabel blinked, surprised._

"_Michael?"_

"_Were you expecting someone else?" Michael asked with an amused grin._

As always, Isabel awoke from the dream feeling both elated and bewildered, but this time the feeling was tinged with panic as well. The child… her _son_… had been so vivid, so real. How could she be dreaming about a son she did not have?

One hand moved slowly, traveling down to her stomach.

Was this a vision? A warning of some sort, a premonition? Was she… pregnant?

No, that wasn't possible. Just because the dream had been so real, just because the boy had called her Mama, that didn't mean that she was going to have a child. It would be physically impossible anyway, she hadn't slept with anyone, certainly not Michael.

Unless… was this some sort of alien thing? Was her species able to procreate through dreams? She knew that in some birds, the female was able to lay eggs without actually mating with a male. Was this the same? Did the genetic mixing happen through dreams? Could she be…?

"Oh… _God_…"

She got out of bed and padded slowly to the door of the room. Her first instinct was to go to Max, but she had been doing that so much lately, in the middle of the night when the dreams would wake her and leave her trembling with emotions she did not understand, and she was loathe to continually ruin any chance of sleep her brother had.

In the hallway, she decided instead just to get a drink of water. She could ask Max about this later, in the morning, after he'd already slept through the night. Treading as silently as possible, she headed towards the stairs down to the kitchen.

She froze when she saw her parents' bedroom light on. It was the middle of the night. How could her parents be awake now? Why would her parents be awake now? She crept closer to the door, holding her breath, listening.

"…just scares me, Philip," came her mother's voice, soft and gentle.

"I know, Diane. I'm scared to. If Max and Isabel are mixed up in anything… Do you think we should tell them about the investigation?" replied her father's rough baritone.

There was a pause, a hesitation, then her mother replied, "I don't know. The DEA officer… he was really adamant that we not tell them. That letting them know about this could put them in more danger."

DEA? Isabel frowned, trying to figure out what her parents were talking about. What would the Drug Enforcement Administration have to do with her and Max? What investigation? And why had they spoken to her mother about it?

"I just don't see how keeping them in the dark would protect them," her mother added.

She heard her father sigh, then answer, "He must think that Isabel and Max would be reckless. That if they thought Michael was in danger, they'd do something stupid. I… I don't know. I know our children better than he does, and I know that they do have good heads on their shoulders. They wouldn't do anything stupid, I don't think, but… I don't know if I want to take the risk…"

"I know…" Her mother's reply was heavy and filled with quiet frustration. "I just don't like not being able to do anything."

"What exactly did this man ask you about?"

"Mostly Hank. A little bit about how well Max and Isabel knew Michael. And about why max had been at Michael's trailer the night Hank and he fought. A few questions about Liz Parker and Maria DeLuca as well. For those, he said he just wanted to know if anyone else was in danger. And… he did ask me if I'd ever noticed anything odd about their behavior growing up…"

"Why?"

"He said they weren't sure when exactly this… drug thing… had started with Hank, and… Oh, I don't know Philip. I just… I don't know." There was another silence, then Isabel heard her mother whisper, "I didn't tell him anything specific about them growing up, though. Just that they had always been… separate… from the others. This is really the first year they've hung out with anyone other than Michael."

"You didn't tell him anything else?" Her father's voice was sharp.

"About Max and Isabel growing up? No, I didn't. I could have told him that once I saw Max play with a bird with a broken wing, and then watched the bird fly away, miraculously healed. I could have told him that they've always been secretive, that every time I'm around Isabel I feel this strange tug at my memory like there is something vital about her that I've forgotten. I could have told him… I could have told him that there has always been something different about my children, but I didn't… it didn't feel safe to say that."

"Safe? What do you mean, Diane?"

"I don't know." Again, her voice was heavy and filled with annoyance that she couldn't explain the feeling. "I just… I don't know."

Isabel had heard enough. All thoughts of possibly being pregnant and wanting that drink of water left her mind as she realized what she had just overheard. Someone had been talking to her mother about her and Max, and chances are that someone wasn't who he claimed to be. The shape-shifter? The FBI? She didn't know, but she needed to tell Max this.

Instead of going to her brother's room, however, she walked into the living room. It was still dark out, the sun wouldn't start to rise for a good several hours. Drawn by something she couldn't explain, she grabbed her house keys and stepped out into the warm night. Locking the door behind her, she began to walk, following the pull that was leading her through the streets of Roswell.

Twenty minutes later, she ended up in the middle of the park. She sat down on the nearest bench and stared up at the sky, studying the constellations, wondering if one of them had the star that served as a sun for her world.

* * *

Sydney watched as her father flipped through a file of newspaper clippings, looking for something specific. Her nanny had gotten the flu, she she'd gone with her father to work. His assistant, the nice boy with the far too serious eyes wasn't working today, so she the two of them were alone in the building. Her father was very absorbed in what he was doing, and she was playing with her dolls on the floor, listening to the almost-silence, the creaking of the floorboards underneath them, her father's steady breathing, the beat of her own heart. 

"I'll be right back, I need to check on something. Yell for me if you need anything, okay?" Brody said, standing quickly. He made a point of never leaving his daughter alone for more than a single minute without another adult around… just in case.

Sydney nodded, and Brody disappeared into the backroom.

The moment he left, the door to the UFO Center swung open, and a man appeared. He was wearing a leather jacket and gray slacks, and sunglasses. His hair was neatly combed and parted, like a typical prep boy, but his entire demeanor gave Sydney the chills. He looked at her, and she looked at him, and her heart began to race.

"Daddy?" she called instinctively, standing up and moving away from the strange man who ahd come. "Daddy?"

"There's no need to be afraid of me, sweetheart," the man said in a smooth voice, giving her a smile. He removed his sunglasses to reveal cold, dark eyes. "We met a while ago, Sydney. You probably don't remember me, but I'm a friend of your father's."

Sydney shook her head, still afraid. "Daddy!"

The door to the back room flung open, and Brody came running out, drawn by his daughter's cries. He moved to her, but stopped when he caught sight of the man in the doorway.

"Well, well, well… Brody Davis."

Brody let his hands drop to Sydney's shoulders, pulling her towards him protectively. "Hello, Hubble," he said coolly.

* * *

Max chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully as he watched Liz working. She was standing on the other side of the Crashdown, one hand holding a stack of menus that she was about to hand out to the patrons she was serving, the other hand resting lightly on the side of her hip. Her hair was pulled back in a casual ponytail, a few loose strands falling around her neck. 

"You know," Maria said dryly, slipping into the booth across from Max, "if you stare long enough, you might end up burning a hole in her."

Max started at her appearance, having been to engrossed in watching Liz to hear Maria's approach. He blushed faintly and smiled. Then he frowned and asked, "I thought you weren't working today. Liz said you didn't have a shift…"

"I don't," Maria answered. "I just thought I'd stop by and hang out." She glanced quickly towards the door leading back to the kitchen, then let her gaze drop to the table.

Max gave a knowing smile. "Michael said he was working at the grill today," he smirked. "I don't suppose that's a reason you would have stopped by?"

Maria narrowed her eyes at him and replied pointedly, "You're a fine one to talk. You've been in her constantly for the past ten years, just watching Liz."

"You've got to admit, Evans, that is a little creepy. Stalker, are you?" a voice said, and Maria and Max both looked up to see Kyle standing there. Trudy was standing a few feet behind him, and behind her were Tess and her boyfriend, Chris. Tess and Chris weren't paying any attention to Kyle's conversation, but Trudy was listening surreptitiously.

"Jealous, much?" Maria taunted. "After all, he did get your girl."

Kyle shrug nonchalantly, and Maria realized with a start that he no longer harbored any feelings for Liz. "Evans can have Liz. I got the better end of the deal," Kyle remarked, reaching out and interlacing his fingers' with Trudy's. "Although, I'm surprised you want to go out with Liz," Kyle added casually as he turned to leave.

"And why's that?" Max demanded, instantly protective of his girlfriend.

"Well… you know what they say… once a cheater, always a cheater," Kyle replied over his shoulder as he and Trudy walked away.

Max blinked, and then remembered that, because of the rumor Tess had started, Kyle still thought that Liz had been dating both boys at once. He saw Maria stiffen and start to rise, clearly planning on following Kyle and arguing with him.

Then a hand suddenly landed on Maria's shoulder, pushing her back into her seat. Isabel, having heard the end of the conversation with Kyle, intervened and prevented Maria from rising to her friend's defense.

"You'll be doing Liz no favors if you start a shouting match with Kyle about whether or not Liz is a cheater. Especially considering you can't back up any of your arguments without sending us all right to the FBI," Isabel said quietly.

"Tess should never have started that rumor!" Maria spat, furious.

"And if she hadn't," Isabel countered, "Kyle would have wondered why Liz was spending so much time with Max, and he'd have gone to Daddy, and we all know what could have happened if the Sheriff had started asking too many questions." Without waiting for Maria's response, she turned to Max. "Can I talk to you for a moment? Alone?"

Max was still staring at Kyle, still wanting to pummel the football jock for his derogatory remark about Liz. But he had enough common sense to know that he couldn't very well do any of that here and now. Besides, it wasn't Kyle's fault that he believed the rumor Tess started. If anything, it was Tess' fault for starting the rumor in the first place.

He could practically hear Tess' voice in his head, snapping back at him that it was all his fault for healing Liz in the first place.

"Max? Did you hear anything I just said?" Isabel asked in annoyance, waving her hand in front of her brother's face. She was too on edge to have any patience for her brother zoning out on her.

"I'm going to talk to Kyle. Tell him that Liz and I were just good friends, and I always liked her, but she refused to do anything with me because she was dating Kyle," Max said determinedly, rising to his feet. "I'm going to tell him that Liz never wanted me to tell him that because she was devastated that he instantly believed the worst of her."

"Okay, but then he's just going to hate you," Maria pointed out.

"Hello? Max? Your sister here really needs to talk to you," Isabel interrupted, frustrated at being ignored. She couldn't very well shout out that she thought her mother had spoken to the FBI about her and that she might be pregnant. Not in a crowded diner. She just needed Max right now.

"He already hates me," Max answered. "At least this way he won't hate Liz." It seemed like a good plan, and paying no heed to his sister's attempts to get his attention, he started walking towards Kyle. Maria stood and followed, wondering if this was going to turn into a fight, wondering if she should run and get Michael so that Max would have back up.

Then she glanced at Tess, and wondered idly who's side the petite hybrid would be on if this did turn into a fistfight.

Isabel threw her hands up in the air and stormed out of the diner. She'd only taken a few steps into the burning sun, when she heard the telltale jingle of the diner door opening and the sound of footsteps on pavement.

"Isabel? Are you okay?"

Isabel turned to see Trudy standing there, arms hugged tightly around her chest, eyes wide with concern. The statuesque alien nodded slowly, fighting to keep her anger under control. "I'm fine. Just having an argument with my brother."

"I'm sorry," Trudy offered. "I hear that brothers can be annoying. At least, that's what Tess always says." She hesitated, then added, "Tess, Chris, Kyle and I were supposed to be on a double date right now. But if you need to talk, I can tell Kyle that I can't make it…"

"No, I'm okay," Isabel replied, thinking that right now all she really needed _was_ someone to talk to. But not Trudy. She needed someone who she could actually confide in, who wouldn't run screaming when she told them she thought she might have been impregnated by an alien in her dreams.

As if summoned, Tess pushed her way through the door of the diner. Glancing at Trudy, she remarked dispassionately, "You might want to go intervene before your boyfriend kills Max Evans."

Trudy rolled her eyes and glanced at Isabel. "I'll be right back," she declared, and hurried back into the diner.

"Tell me what's wrong," Tess said. It wasn't a request, and Isabel complied with the order.

"Last night, I overheard my mom and dad talking. I think someone, maybe from the FBI, maybe the shape-shifter, talked to my mom a couple weeks ago. About us, and… they tricked my mom, I think, into telling them things." She ran a hand through her hair, wanting to be able to elaborate on her fear. She wanted to explain that she was terrified that her mother might betray them. Might discover the truth and turn on them. And she wanted to explain how, at the same time, she was also incredibly frightened that her parents might be in danger because of this. She didn't want them to get hurt.

But she didn't say any of those things. Instead, she finished, "And I think I might be pregnant."

Tess opened her mouth, realized she had nothing to say, and closed it.

"I think… it might be mine and… Michael's," Isabel whispered, and she continued to elaborate about the dreams she had been having, about the child, about the strange feeling in her stomach that maybe there was something there…

And Tess just listened in silence.

By the time Isabel was done talking, she was in tears, and Trudy was just stepping back out of the Crashdown, preventing Tess from saying anything too specific to Isabel.

"Don't worry," Tess murmured. "We'll figure it out. I promise." And she made a mental note to yell at Max for his obliviousness at the next available moment.

* * *

The UFO Center was strangely busy that afternoon, and Brody cursed himself for giving Max the day off. He really hadn't expected that many people to come, there had only been a slow trickle of patrons over the past couple weeks. Nothing exciting or unusual was happening today, but for some strange reason, everyone in town wanted to see his exhibits. 

He circled through the room, answering questions, entering lively debates about extraterrestrial existence, listening to comments from various skeptics and believers, all the while trying to keep an eye on Sydney, who was huddled in a corner of the room, playing with her dolls.

Hubble was there as well, staring at each exhibit, each collected and carefully arranged piece of information with a sneer fixed firmly to his face. Occasionally, he would glance across the crowded room to Brody, or quickly glance at the UFO Center owner's young daughter. Occasionally, he would seem to be lost in his own thoughts, contemplating something.

"Excuse me? Mr. Davis?"

Brody glanced at the old woman who was trying to get his attention. He didn't recognize her, but he hadn't been in town that long, so he supposed he wouldn't know all of the Roswell residents yet. She had short, curly white-gray hair, and a very wrinkled face. She was smiling gently, and she reminded him of television grandmothers, the ones that always have chocolate chip cookies and glasses of milk sitting on the kitchen table, just in case a grandchild decides to visit.

"Yes, Mrs…?"

"Dawson. Janet Dawson," the woman replied. "I was just wondering if you could explain this to me," she said, pointing to the nearest exhibit. "All this talk of radioactive isotope waves and magnetic fields… I'm afraid it is a bit too technical for me."

"Of course, Mrs. Dawson," Brody replied, and launched into an explanation.

Hubble watched Brody for a moment, then walked casually over to Sydney. The little girl looked up at him with wide eyes and clutched her doll tightly to her chest.

"Hello, sweetheart," Hubble said in a gentle voice, kneeling down next to her. "That's a pretty doll you've got."

"Daddy gave her to me for my birthday," Sydney replied. The strange feeling was still there, no matter how much she tried to shake it. She didn't like this man, and she knew Daddy didn't like him either, but he hadn't done anything mean yet…

"What's her name?" Hubble asked.

"Mary," Sydney whispered. She started coughing a little, and Hubble instantly looked concern.

"Do you want me to get you some water, sweetheart?" he offered, already standing up. Sydney nodded as the itching in her throat grew worse, and Hubble disappeared to find her a glass of water.

Brody finished his explanation, and Mrs. Dawson thanked him and moved away. As she headed towards the door, he turned to scan the room, and consequently missed the look and tiniest of nods that passed between the old woman and Hubble.

His gaze landed on Sydney, who was still holding her doll, but in the other hand grasped a glass of water. He frowned, trying to remember if he had given her water before the Center became so busy. He couldn't be certain, but he couldn't imagine where else she would have gotten it, so he let the matter slide, and continued to mingle with his guests.

* * *

Isabel paced back and forth across the floor of Michael's apartment, watching him as he watched her. She kept running a hand through her hair, separating the long blonde strands, as though this could somehow fix all her problems. She'd just finished telling Michael about her dreams, about her fears of being pregnant, about the conversation her mother and father had had. 

"Did you… have you dreamt about a child?" Isabel asked finally, her voice filled with apprehension and fear.

Michael nodded solemnly. "I did, but I thought… I just thought that it was another dream. Are you… are you sure? I mean, is it even possible? It's not for humans…"

Isabel stared at him incredulously and pointed out, "And it's also not possible for humans to enter people's dreams, blow up things, heal injuries, or control minds. We're not human, Michael!"

Michael held his hands up in surrender, trying to figure out what he could say to Isabel that wouldn't send her into hysterics. If she thought she was pregnant, then he wasn't going to question it until they had absolute proof that she wasn't. But if she was… How exactly was he suppose to handle this?

"What did Maxwell say?" Michael asked at last.

"Nothing," Isabel snapped moodily. "I couldn't get him to pay attention to me for more than three seconds so I never got a chance to tell him. He's too busy staring at Liz like she's the reincarnation of God."

Michael frowned. He could understand that Max would be preoccupied with thoughts of Liz, it was obvious from the way he stared at her that he couldn't keep his mind away from her for more than a few minutes at a time. But if Isabel was in trouble, Max usually listened. After all, Isabel and his sister, and he'd always cared about her more than anyone else.

"Look, Isabel, I'm sure we can figure this out," Michael said soothingly, trying to get her to relax.

"Figure it out? Figure it out?" Isabel hissed, face flushed. "Michael, I could be pregnant with your child! It isn't one of those things that just goes away because you want it to."

"You're _what_?"

Michael and Isabel turned to the door of the apartment, where Maria was standing, white-faced and shocked. Her eyes traveled back and forth between the two aliens, her mouth falling open in surprise. And then the surprise quickly turned to anger, and her eyes narrowed at Michael in fury.

Too late, Michael remembered that he and Maria had made plans to watch a movie tonight, to spend some time together. Too late, he remembered that Maria never bothered to knock anymore.

"Maria…" Michael started moving towards her, "it's not what you think."

"I can't _believe_ you!" Maria cried, eyes filling with tears of rage. "_Don't_ come near me, don't touch me! How _could_ you?" And without another word, she turned on her heel and ran from the apartment.

Michael chased her into the hallway, but she was already disappearing down the stairs, and Isabel was close to completely falling apart behind him, and he had no idea what to do now.

* * *

"I cannot believe you got into a fight with Kyle Valenti," Liz said, trying to stifle back a smile as she observed Max dabbing gingerly at his face with a damp washcloth. "Can't you just heal yourself?" 

"No, unfortunately, my own gifts don't work on me," Max grumbled. His face did really sting. It hadn't been much of a fight, but Kyle had taken a swing at him, and he was a good hitter. The bruise was going to last. "It's times like these that I wish Michael or Isabel had the ability to heal me."

"What about Tess?" Liz asked.

Max frowned. "Once, she was able to heal a bruise that I got when I fell of the swings. We were younger then, I think ten or eleven. She's never been able to heal anyone else, but for some reason, she can heal small things on me… bruises, scrapes…" Then he grimaced and added, "But since it was Kyle who hit me and this isn't a life threatening injury, I don't think Tess is going to be in the mood to help."

"And Isabel and Michael can't heal at all?"

Max shook his head. "Michael can't heal at all. But Isabel can heal Michael when he has small bruises and cuts…" He frowned slightly, thinking about this. "All of us have the ability blow up things, but only Michael can control it. Tess, Isabel, and I have the gift of healing, but only I can heal anything above a small cut. But nobody besides Isabel can dream-walk, and nobody besides Tess can mind-warp."

"Doesn't really seem fair that you guys can't do anything that Isabel and Tess can do, but that they have small versions of your gifts," Liz commented.

Max turned to face her. "I guess. I mean, it isn't actually much use to any of us to be able to make something explode when we can't guarantee that we won't blow up everything around us as well. And same with the healing… Tess and Isabel have a lot of limitations on that particular gift, so they never really use it. Isabel couldn't even heal most of the stuff that Hank did to Michael because her healing was so weak."

"Still…"

Max laughed. "Isabel said it was nature's way of compensating her and Tess for being born… hatched… whatever… in a male-dominated world."

"I still cannot believe you got into a fight with Kyle," Liz muttered, changing the subject.

"I didn't like what he was saying," Max defended himself. "He shouldn't blame you for all this when you didn't do anything wrong. If it's anyone's fault, it's Tess'."

Liz sighed. In truth, she was upset that Kyle still seemed upset with her. She knew he had completely moved on, and she saw the way he interacted with Trudy and knew that he barely thought of her. But it still must hurt him, the times that he did think of her, to believe that she'd cheated on him.

And she couldn't even be mad at Tess. Although the fourth alien probably gave no thought to the consequences her actions would have for Liz, the blonde had only been trying to fix the situation, to keep their secrets safe. And who knew, perhaps starting that rumor had been the only way to keep the Sheriff away from the truth.

The harsh ringing of Max's phone interrupted the silence that had fallen, and Liz glanced over at him as he stared at the caller I.D. He seemed confused, and a moment later, he answered the phone with a curious, "Brody? I thought I wasn't suppose to come in today?"

His expression grew more grave, and then worried, as Liz listened to his side of the conversation.

"What's wrong?... Of course I can come… no, it isn't a problem… I'll be there in fifteen minutes… yes, that's fine, I have the keys… okay… I hope everything turns out okay."

He hung up.

"What is it?" Liz asked.

Max ran a hand through his hair, messing it up. "It's Brody," he replied, clearly concerned. "Something's wrong with his daughter, and he needs to rush her to the hospital. He wants me to come and finish working his shift, then close the Center for him." He was already walking towards the door. "I'd better go."

Liz called out a goodbye, but Max was already hurrying down the steps from her bedroom. As he reached the door of her home, his cell phone rang again. He glanced quickly at the caller I.D. but it was only Isabel. Deciding that whatever she wanted could wait, he dismissed her call and headed towards the UFO Center.

* * *

"It looks like she's fighting a virus of some sort," the doctor said thoughtfully, staring at the medical records in front of him. He'd just run a battery of tests on Sydney Davis, and the results were not hopeful. Her white blood cell count indicated that there was an infection in her body, and her liver and kidney function was lower than he would have wanted. Her body was too tired from fighting the leukemia, she wasn't able to stave off this virus. 

"How? She was fine this morning," Brody asked, leaning against the hospital wall for support. Behind the doctor, a door opened into the hospital room, and he could see Sydney lying in bed, still holding the same doll. He and the doctor had decided to have this conversation in the hallway because he didn't want to upset his daughter with any bad news. But she looked so frail and small that he couldn't help but think that she probably already knew that something was wrong.

"Kids pick up viruses all the time, and your daughter is no exception. Especially since her immune system is already compromised." The doctor lapsed into silence for a moment, then added, "Although, a lot of her symptoms seem like they could be attributed to food poisoning. Has she eaten anything like uncooked meat or poultry?"

Brody shook his head. "She had yogurt this morning, and a sandwich for lunch. Juice and water also. She said she wasn't hungry, so I didn't make her eat that much."

"Was the yogurt pasteurized?" the doctor questioned.

If he hadn't been so distraught, Brody might have been offended by the question. He knew enough about his daughter's illness not to give her unpasteurized dairy products that would probably contain some kind of bacteria that could compromise Sydney's health.

"Yes, it was," Brody answered.

The doctor sighed, made a note of this on his chart, then said, "I don't know what else to tell you right now, Mr. Davis. We're doing the best we can to get this infection under control. But it is going to take a lot of work and effort and… the prognosis is not hopeful."

Brody swallowed as he accepted this, unable to really understand what it all meant. He couldn't contemplate life without his daughter, even though he had known all along that the end might be coming for her soon. He looked away from the doctor, down the hallway to the other men and women standing there. Some were nurses or doctors, some appeared to be other hospital staff, and a few were patients or the families of patients. He wondered how many of them had come here to die.

"We're making every effort," the doctor said gently, sympathetically. "But you should go be with your daughter now."

Brody nodded and walked into the room, away from the doctor, towards his dying daughter.

He needed to find the aliens who had abducted him, cured his cancer. He needed them, now more than ever. He needed someone who could heal his daughter.

He wasn't ready to lose her yet.

* * *

Next Chapter: All The Things We Cannot Do 

Due: Sun 8/7


	87. All The Things We Cannot Do

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: So I was thinking about the episode in the third season where Max tries to heal the little autistic boy and can't. And I was wondering, why couldn't he? Were we just supposed to accept that autistic children can't be healed? Are autistic children _supposed_ to be the way they are? It didn't really seem well explained in the episode.

So this chapter came to mind as I was thinking about that. It's not a particularly happy chapter.

* * *

Chapter Eighty-Six: All The Things We Cannot Do

Maria slammed the door to her room shut and scrambled over to her bed. Throwing herself face down on the mattress, she bit back the desire to scream. She should have known better than to truth Michael, no matter what he said. All those dreams he was having of Isabel… they weren't just weird alien things happening, they were his actual feelings. He'd lied to her, promising her that she could trust him, and she'd fallen for it.

"Maria? What's wrong?"

Amy was standing in the doorway, leaning heavily against the frame. She wasn't supposed to exert herself, and she knew she should be lying in bed right now. The walk she'd taken earlier in the day had left her winded and sore, and her physical therapist had repeatedly warned her that she shouldn't overdo it.

But her daughter was upset, and that was more important than anything a doctor would tell her.

"Nothing," Maria muttered, her face still buried in a pillow. "Michael's an idiot…" She didn't say anything, and no matter how much Amy pushed and prodded, she couldn't get details out of her daughter.

The older woman finally left her daughter alone in the room. If Maria didn't want to talk, she wasn't going to press her on it. But she was going to find Michael and make him realize the consequences of upsetting Maria.

Nobody hurt her baby and got away with it.

* * *

Max stood in the hallway of the hospital and thought to himself that he'd been here too frequently this year. First with Amy DeLuca, then with Michael, now for Sydney…

He'd closed up shop like Brody had asked, and then he'd gone home. But, unable to stay in his own room for any long period of time, to worried and anxious, he'd left the house shortly after arriving and gone to the hospital. It wasn't difficult to convince the nurse at the reception desk that he was a relative of Sydney's, she'd been too busy filing her nails to really listen to anything he'd said. So he'd let himself wander through the hallways until he spotted Brody.

Brody was standing outside the door of a room, looking at the patient within. Max had toyed with the idea of going up to his boss, but he didn't want to intrude on this private moment. So he'd stayed back in the shadows, watching in silence. When Brody finally entered the room, and Max was given a clear view of Sydney, he'd been shocked to see how pale and small she looked.

So tiny, so frail.

He wanted to help her. He wanted, so badly, to do something, anything, to save her.

It was why Brody was here, wasn't it? To find the aliens that had cured him of his cancer and save his daughter. To finally free himself from the constant heartache, pain, and stress of having a dying child.

Max clenched his hands into fists and prayed for a way to help.

He was so intently focused on Brody and Sydney, that he did not see the man at the end of the hallway who watched him through guarded eyes. The strange man was dressed all in black, and his gaze was cold and calculating. After a moment of observing Max, he turned and left.

Once he'd turned the corner of the hallway, the man reached into his pocket and fished out a cell phone. He placed a call, listening to the rings at the other end, and the sharp answer, "Yes?"

"The child is sick. The Evans boy has come to the hospital, just like you predicted. I sense some troubles between him and the Evans girl as well. We're close," the man reported in a carefully controlled voice.

"Very good," came the reply. "Keep an eye on the Evans twins. I want to know how this is resolved, Hubble."

"Yes, Agent Pierce," the man named Hubble replied.

* * *

Michael watched as Isabel played with the hem of her shirt, staring blankly into space. He'd stayed in the apartment after Maria had left, not knowing what exactly to do. He understood that Maria was only reacting to what he had heard, but it still stung his pride that she hadn't even waited to hear his explanation. How could she think so little of him that it was so easy for her to believe he would get another girl pregnant?

Isabel was shaking. He noticed it first in her hands, the way her fingers moved over the fabric of her shirt as she slowly twisted the cloth. He lifted his eyes to her face, and saw the tension in the eyes, the white sheen of the skin.

"Izzy," he started, and she jerked her head to look at him. "We don't know anything yet," he finished.

"We know enough," Isabel replied. She stood abruptly and stepped away from him, beginning to pace the floor. "Enough to be worried."

Michael bit his lip to hold back the reply about to leave his mouth. He wanted to snap at her, to tell her that this was no time to panic, that she needed to remain calm, that she was only making everything worse. But he could see the helpless fear in her eyes, and he couldn't bring himself to yell at her.

Instead, he said soothingly, "Isabel, why don't you go back to your house? I need to talk to Maria, and you need to talk to Max."

Isabel glared at him for a moment, then folded her arms over her chest and said, "So Maria comes first? What, the fact that I might be carrying your child doesn't rate above your waitress girlfriend?"

"That's not fair, Isabel," Michael spat.

"No, it's not!" Isabel snapped back. "None of this is fear. None of anything that's happened in the past few months is fair! But that doesn't not give you the right to abandon me while you chase after Maria!"

"What do you want me to do, Isabel?" Michael asked bitterly. "I don't know what to tell you. I don't know if you're pregnant. I don't know how to fix it. What do you want from me?"

"I don't know, Michael," Isabel replied sarcastically. "How about carrying? How about telling me that we're in this together. How about you stop acting like Maria is your priority."

"She is my priority," Michael replied, and the words were out of his mouth before he could really think them through. In retrospect, it was the worst possible thing he could have chosen to say, but it was too late, and Isabel was already pushing past him towards the door of the apartment.

"Well, that's funny, because you obviously aren't hers," Isabel called over her shoulder as she wrenched open the door.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Michael demanded, rushing to her side and grabbing her arm to prevent her from leaving.

Isabel rolled her pretty eyes and explained, "She didn't even wait around to see if you had an explanation. It was easy for her to believe that you would cheat on her. She just accepted it and left…" She trailed off with a smirk. "Some girlfriend you've got there."

Michael dropped her arm as though the mere contact with her skin had burned him. He was furious, but wasn't Isabel just saying what he had been thinking? Maybe she had insulted Maria, but hadn't he wondered the exact same question? Why had Maria just left?

"She was in shock…" he said, but the words seemed like a hollow excuse, even to him.

Isabel shook her head and walked out of the apartment, letting the door slam shut behind her.

* * *

Liz took the stairs to Maria's room two at a time. She'd stopped by just to talk to Maria, but Amy had been in the living room and informed her that Maria was in tears over something, and now the brunette human was eager to find out what had happened and fix it.

"Maria?" she called as she knocked on the door. There was no answer from within, but she pushed the door open anyway, and stepped into the room. Maria was sitting on the bed, her legs pulled into her chest, her eyes fixed on a spot on the wall across from her. She turned her head slowly to look at Liz, and then looked away again.

Liz took a few tentative steps into the room, and when Maria didn't tell her to leave, she took that as an invitation to enter. Crossing the floor, she sank onto the bed next to Maria and carefully wrapped her arm around the other girl's shoulders.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

Maria was silent for a moment, then said hollowly, "Michael slept with Isabel."

For a moment, Liz was sure that she had heard Maria wrong. There was no possible way the two of them would actually ever… But Maria had said… and she was serious…

"How did you…?"

"Find out?" Maria finished Liz's question in an acidic tone. "I went over to his apartment and heard them talking about it. Isabel's _pregnant_."

Liz tightened her grip on Maria's shoulders. "Do you want me to kill Michael for you?" she offered, aware that there wasn't much else she could say to help her hurting friend.

Maria tried to smile at Liz's words, but it ended up as a grimaced that left her looking angry and pained. She stared down at her knees, at her fingers clenched tightly into fists resting on her legs, and shook her head. She was too numb to even think.

"My mom is probably already plotting his death," Maria murmured.

"She knows?" Liz asked, surprised. She knew that Amy and Maria were close, but she had trouble picturing Maria going to her mother with this sort of problem. Especially after everything that had happened, Maria didn't like to bother her mother with anything.

"No," Maria replied, "Not really. She came to ask me what was wrong when I first got home and I just… I told her it was about Michael. No details, but… She's been really overprotective since the guy we all thought was Sean left."

Liz nodded. First Sean, now Michael… how many more betrayals was her friend going to have to suffer.

One thing was certain; she was going to find Michael and she was going to kill him.

* * *

Max opened the door to his own home and froze.

He could feel it. The strong surge of fury, pain, and terror, all radiating throughout the air of his house, filling it with a heavy silence. It didn't take long to figure out where it was coming from, and he practically flew through the living room and up the stairs to his sister's room.

Without bothering to knock, he pushed the door open and found her sitting on a chair by the window. She looked over at him, surprised by his sudden appearance, but he didn't let her speak.

Instead, his own questions came spilling out. "What's wrong? Izzy? Are you okay?"

Isabel glared at him, eyes narrowing. "So now you finally have time to talk, Max? Now that precious Liz is off doing something else?"

Max paused, confused, then registered what she as talking about. Closing the door firmly behind him, he asked, "Is that why you came to the Crashdown? Why you called later?" At her reproachful nod, he tried to justify, "I didn't know that you were… I thought… it was just something about Alex that you were upset about and I was…"

"You were what, Max? Too busy to spare you sister a moment of your precious time?" Isabel demanded. Part of her knew she should just be happy that Max had finally come to his senses and decided to talk to her, but she was still too hurt by everything that had happened to give in that easily. First he wouldn't listen to her, then Michael had run off after Maria and left her alone… Ironically, the only person here who seemed to care was Tess, and Tess was also the root of all of her problems with Alex.

"I've had a few other things on my mind," Max snapped. He took a seat on the edge of the bed opposite Isabel and added, "Brody's daughter is dying, and he's completely falling apart, and I'm just trying to help,"

"And Michael's worried about Maria. And you want to make sure that Liz doesn't get too upset by Kyle's comments. But nobody seems to think that maybe my problems deserve some attention to?" Isabel seethed.

This was not the way Max wanted the conversation to go, and he was tired of being blamed for all this. Frowning, he asked, "What exactly are your problems?"

"Last night, I overheard Mom and Dad talking about some guy who had questioned Mom. He'd said he was from the Drug Enforcement Administration, but I think he's FBI. And Mom told him stuff… about us and Michael and Hank." Isabel watched as Max's eyes widened with this new revelation. "And," she continued, "she apparently knows that we're not normal. She didn't tell him that because she didn't fully trust him, but she knows… Max, she knows something's different about us. How much longer before she figures out what it is?"

"They are our parents, and even if they find out, they will love us regardless," Max intoned, trying to reassure her.

Isabel laughed briefly at his naiveté. "Max, you and I are actually brother and sister. _Family_. And you can barely look at me now that I've decided I want to be friends with Tess and that group. How do you think Mom's going to react when she finds out not only are we a completely different species, but we've been lying to her for the past ten years?"

"That's different," Max protested. "I'm upset about your behavior the past few weeks. But Mom and Dad can't blame us for being… different. It wasn't our choice."

"And lying to them? Manipulating them? Letting Tess mind-warp them? Was that also not our choice?" Isabel tossed back. When Max didn't answer, she shrugged and looked away again. "You remember those dreams Michael and I kept having?"

"Yes."

"Well… now there's a little boy in them. Our son." Isabel drew a deep breath and said in a rush, "I think I might be pregnant."

Max blinked, then asked hesitatingly, "From the dreams? Is that even possible?"

"How would I know?" Isabel asked, throwing her hands up in frustration at Max's question. "But I was telling Michael, and Maria walked in a jumped to the worst. Now she's convinced Michael and I are sleeping together, and she ran off. Michael wanted to go talk to her… instead of talking to me."

"He just wants to sort everything out with Maria so that she understands he didn't betray her," Max replied.

"And what about me?" Isabel asked softly. Max didn't answer, and she sighed in frustration. "Max, both you and Michael are acting like this is somehow more my problem than yours. I didn't sleep with Michael, I didn't do anything to put myself in this position. It is not _my_ fault and it is _everyone's_ problem. And, in case you've forgotten, if I'm pregnant, this is just as much Michael's baby as it is mine."

"Okay, first we have to figure out if you actually are pregnant," Max said thoughtfully, falling into problem-solving mode. "We can't very well take you to a hospital, but there has to be some other way…" He hesitated, then asked, "Can I talk to Liz?"

"What?"

Before Isabel could interpret his question the wrong way, Max explained, "She knows the most about biology out of any of us. She can help… I think."

"She doesn't know alien biology," Isabel argued.

"But we're half-human," Max replied. "And she knows something about that. In the meantime, after Michael sorts everything out with Maria, we need to meet. And Tess too… does she know?"

Isabel nodded. She decided not to remark on Max's decision that Michael could meet with Maria before they started trying to figure out if she was pregnant. She was too tired to start another argument.

Before Max could say anything else, his cell phone rang, and he reached for it automatically. Noting the number, he became worried again.

"Brody?" He listened for a moment, while Isabel watched his face as it continually changed expressions, then said, "Sure, no problem. Is everything… I mean, how is she?" Again, he listened, then said, "I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do…?" Brody's answer must have been in the negative, because Max sighed and hung up the phone.

"Max?"

"I need to go," Max said, standing up abruptly. "Don't worry, we'll figure everything out," he added to Isabel before leaving the room, clearly lost in his own thoughts.

Isabel turned and stared out the window again. She could only hope that they would figure this all out soon.

* * *

Michael knocked on the door of Maria's house and mentally ran through the list of things he wanted to say to her. He didn't want to upset her, but at the same time he had to tell her that he was less than thrilled about her reaction to what she had head. Couldn't she have at least heard him out?

The door was opened by Liz.

The brunette looked at Michael and that was all it took for him to realize that Maria had told her friend what she had overheard. And now Liz probably thought he was a cheater as well.

"You have some nerve showing up here, Michael," Liz said coldly.

"It's Michael?" a voice asked, and a moment later, Amy appeared in the hallways behind Liz, her eyes narrowed in anger. "What are you doing here and what did you do to my Maria?"

"I didn't do anything," Michael defended himself quickly, glancing between the two woman.

"Didn't do anything?" Liz echoed, furious. "Michael, you got Isabel _pregnant_!"

Amy gasped and stepped backward, one hand flying to her mouth in horror, and Michael thought briefly that this was exactly like some badly made 1950's movie which would end with Maria running off with the poor, but kind-hearted, servant boy and living happily ever after.

"How dare you!" Amy practically screeched. She was exhausted, her body still not able to cope with the demands placed on it by ordinary life. But she managed to muster enough strength to take a threatening step towards Michael. "I think you should leave."

"No," Michael said flatly, more than positive that he would be able to overpower both women if need be. But he was not leaving until Maria listened to what he had to say.

"Michael…" Liz warned, but Michael snapped.

Pushing past the smaller girl, he stormed into the house and slammed the door behind him. Both Liz and Amy backed away, staring at him, suddenly apprehensive.

"I did not get Isabel pregnant. I did not sleep with Isabel. I would _never_ do that to Maria," Michael said angrily, his voice sharp. "She came into my apartment without knocking or announcing her presence, and she overheard the tail end of a conversation that she misinterpreted. I tried to explain it to her, but she wouldn't even listen. She just ran out of there, not willing to give me the benefit of the doubt, not willing to see if maybe she was wrong. She had no problem at all believing that I would betray her like that and you are telling me that what _I_ did was wrong? She's the one who is wrong. She's the one who screwed up. _She's_ the one who betrayed _me_ by thinking that I would just jump into bed with Isabel."

"But you said…" Maria had appeared in the stair way, and heard the end of Michael's angry rant.

"I know what I said," Michael interrupted her, spinning to glare at his girlfriend. "And I know that you didn't even bother listening to me when I tried to explain it!"

"How was I suppose to react, Michael? I thought you'd slept with Isabel. You said you'd slept with Isabel, I _heard_ you!" Maria cried, taking a few steps into the hallway.

Amy took this moment to take Liz by the arm and lead her from the room, knowing that her daughter and Michael would need some privacy.

"You didn't hear that," Michael countered, just barely registering Liz and Amy's departure. "I never said that." He grabbed Maria by the arm, forcing her to give him her full attention. Then he lowered his voice so that Amy could not here and continued, "You heard Isabel say she might be pregnant with my child. Then you heard me say that it wasn't what you think. But you didn't stay around to find out what was going on, did you? Given everything that has happened to us, Maria, did it ever occur to you that this might be something… Czechoslovakian… related? Did it?"

"What…?" Maria whispered.

"Isabel might be pregnant from the dreams. The ones I told you about, the ones we have no control over. We don't know anything at all, except that she might… she might be in trouble…" Michael stopped abruptly and shook his head. "How could you think that about me?"

"Because I heard…"

"I know what you heard," Michael interrupted. He wasn't willing to let her use that as an excuse. She should have waited to hear all of it, instead of jumping to conclusions on the tiny fraction of the conversation she had eavesdropped on. He shook his head. "I know what you heard," he repeated, "but that isn't enough of an excuse."

He had meant to stay and talk to Maria, to explain everything, to reassure her that he was not about to start sleeping with anyone else, but he was too upset to have a rational conversation with her. And the longer he stood here, the more he realized that he should have been with Isabel, because she was the one in trouble, she was the one who most needed his help right now.

"I have to go," he said at last. "I'll talk to you later."

"Wait, Michael," Maria said, but he had already turned away. "Wait," she called again. "Look, can't we just talk about this?"

"I have to get back to Isabel," Michael said woodenly, giving her an unreadable stare.

"What about us?" Maria asked.

Michael shook his head. "Maria, this isn't about me or you or our stupid relationship. Something is happening to Isabel. That's what I care about." He stormed out of the house, closing the door behind him, and leaving a confused and hurt Maria to stare at the place where he had stood only moments before.

* * *

"I need to heal Sydney."

Liz looked up as Max climbed through the window into her room. She'd gotten home several hours earlier, after a long, rather stressful conversation with Maria about Michael's revelations, and she really didn't have the energy to deal with anything alien at the moment.

"You what?" she asked.

"I have to heal her," Max explained calmly, rationally. "Brody says that she's sick. Really sick. She picked up some infection and it's compromised her immune system even more… They don't know how long she has."

"Max, you can't heal her. How are you going to get into the hospital, heal her, and leave without anyone seeing?" Liz pointed out logically. Changing the subject, she asked, "How's Isabel holding up?"

Max gave her a startled look. "How did you know?"

"Michael told me," Liz replied with shrug. She stood up and walked over to the window, closing it. "I'm surprised you aren't with her right now."

"She went over to Tess'," Max explained, even though he knew that wasn't quite the reason. He couldn't explain why he needed to heal Sydney, but he was so intently focused on the sick girl that he could barely think about anything else. Even his own sister's problems had taken second place to Brody's daughter.

"Just because she's friends with Tess now doesn't mean you can turn her back on her when she needs you," Liz argued, trying to get Max to see the consequences of his actions.

"I'm not turning my back on her," Max protested. "I'm going to help her as soon as I heal Sydney."

"No, you aren't," Liz replied. She gave Max a piercing look and said slowly, "This isn't about Sydney at all. You don't want to heal her because of her, you want to heal her because you can't fix anything else."

"What?" Max asked, not following her complex thoughts. "Of course I can fix things. I just… once I heal Sydney, it will be better…"

"How?" Liz questioned, her voice rising in volume to cut across Max's proclamation. "How will it be better, Max? Are you suddenly going to have an idea for how to determine if Isabel is pregnant? Will you be able to help her if she is? Will healing Sydney make Tess' nightmares about the white room go away? Will it keep Isabel from becoming a popular girl, someone you don't know anymore? Will it allow Maria to get over her mother's accident or Sean's betrayal? Will it stop the FBI from investigating? Will it tell you who you are, where you come from? Will it do any of that, Max? _How_ will it help you?"

"I have to do this," Max repeated, not answering any of Liz's questions. He couldn't even look Liz in the eye right now, but he just knew that if he could heal Sydney, everything would be better.

Max turned back to the window. "I'll talk to you later," he said finally. If Liz wasn't going to help him, he would do this on his own. But he had to do it, he had to fix everything.

"Max," Liz said, standing up and catching his arm just before he fully exited the window, "please, think about this. Think about what you're doing. It isn't right. It isn't going to help."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Max argued.

"No," Liz countered, "I know exactly what I'm saying. You're the one who isn't making any sense." She paused, then, practically begging, "Max, please just come inside."

He gave her one last look before climbing down the ladder to the street below and disappearing into the dark night.

* * *

The room was dark. The small girl lay in the bed, her white skin almost blending in with the crisp hospital blankets. Several tubes snaked back and forth through the air above her, connecting her to different machines. A long, thin, intravenous needle slid neatly into a vein on the top of her hand, pumping antibiotics into her body to boost her worn-down immune system.

Max stood in the doorway, and stared at her. He moved slowly to her side, watching her chest rise and fall with each labored breath she took. She was so frail, so tiny, her entire hand barely took up the space of his palm.

He turned and stared up at the security camera in the corner of the room. With a wave of his hand, it melted. He then closed the door firmly behind him, locking it for good measure. The ease with which he had managed to walk by the nurse at the front desk and the few janitors in the hallway had made him feel stronger, more sure of what he was doing.

He rested his hand on the little girl's chest, and saw her eyes flutter slowly open. She was drifting in and out of consciousness, and the moment his flowing powers left his fingertips, he felt the connection with her, firm and bright and strong.

_"Daddy!" _

_" Sydney, you need to stay away from that man." _

_"Hello, Hubble." _

_"Don't trust strangers, sweetie." _

_"That's a pretty doll you've got." _

_"Daddy!" _

_"We met a while ago, Sydney. You probably don't remember, but I'm a friend of your father's." _

_"Don't talk to strangers. And don't take candy from them. Understand?" _

_"Do you want me to get you some water, sweetheart?" _

_"Daddy!" _

"Hey! What's going on in there? Why is this door locked? Open up at once!"

The shouts roused Max from his healing stupor, and he jolted and looked at the door. He felt drained, but he hadn't finished, Sydney was still sick. He sucked in a sharp breath and turned back to her, felt himself suddenly caught in her startled gaze.

She was awake, and looking up at him in confusion.

"Keep looking at me," he whispered, knowing it would make the connection stronger, knowing that it would help heal her. Someone was rattling the doorknob behind him, and he heard the pounding of running footsteps and more shouts. But he ignored them, focusing instead of the beating heart underneath his outstretched palm.

_Pain. The kind that ate away at everything, even sanity, even hope. The weariness that settled so deeply into the bones it was hard to move, to think, to breathe. Aches and shivers and fear. White lights and bright flashes, needles and tubes and hospital gowns. More fear, heavy and mind-numbing. The look in everyone's eyes, the blinding truth that tried so hard to hide… _

_She was dying. _

The gift stopped before he was completely aware of it. The last bit of power died at his skin, and he stared down at the still sick girl, unable to fully comprehend what had happened. Why wasn't it working?

Then the sharp shattering of wood, the screeched of hinges being ripped off the wall, and Max spun around in time to see the door cave inwards and start to crumble under the weight of the men trying to break it down. He gave Sydney one last look, one quick whisper, "Please don't tell," and hurried away from her bedside.

When the door finally crumbled, when the two security guards, the doctor, and Brody all rushed into the room, they found Sydney asleep in the bed, the security camera destroyed, and the far window of her room open, the curtain blowing in the breeze.

* * *

Max sank into the bench in the park and buried his head in his hands, his body shaking with pent-up frustration.

He'd failed.

The infection was gone, Sydney wouldn't die tonight, but the leukemia itself was still there, still slowly killing her.

He hadn't been able to save her.

"What did I really think I'd be able to accomplish? Besides getting us all captured by the FBI?" he asked himself, his words echoing in the silence of the night. He kept picturing her face as she lay in the bed, staring up at him with wide eyes, as though she knew what he was trying to do, as though she was holding to hope that he would succeed.

But he hadn't.

"You can't save everyone, your Majesty."

Max didn't know how the shape-shifter had found him, how Nasedo even knew what was going on. At this point, he didn't care either. He barely lifted his eyes, barely acknowledged the other alien's presence. Instead, he let his gaze rest on the distant horizon, lost in his own thoughts.

"Hubble poisoned her," he said softly. He knew that, from the flash he had seen. He knew that whatever the water she'd been given was, it _wasn't_ just water. That was why she was sick, that was where the infection had come from.

"You can't trust humans. They'll sell their own souls to save themselves," Nasedo said, taking a few steps closer to Max.

"I tried," Max murmured. "I healed the infection… But I couldn't fix her." He turned to Nasedo suddenly. "Why didn't it work?"

"What?" Nasedo asked, confused.

"Why didn't it work?" Max repeated. "You know all about our gifts, about what we can do. You know everything. So tell me, why didn't it work? Why couldn't I save her?"

"Because you can't save everyone. Because it isn't everyone's destiny to be saved."

"So she's just _supposed_ to suffer and die?" Max demanded hotly. He couldn't accept that, no matter what Nasedo said. "Brody had cancer also, and some alien managed to heal him. And what about Liz? I healed her, I saved her."

"Maybe there was a reason for it. Maybe she was meant to be saved," Nasedo suggested.

"I don't believe in fate or destiny," Max retorted.

"Then you're a fool," Nasedo replied calmly. Whatever Max was going to say in reply died on his lips as he took in the serious expression on Nasedo's face. "There are many things we can decide. Many paths we choose to take. But there are some things beyond our control. Some things that simply happen for no apparent reason. What is that thing humans always ask? Why do bad things happen to good people?" Nasedo paused, then shook his head disparagingly. "Who cares what the reason is? There are things in this world out of our control. And sometimes bad things happen to good people, and there is nothing you can do to fix it, to justify it, to explain it. They happen, and you accept them and move on. _That_ is what destiny is. _That_ is what fate is. The acceptance that there is something out there bigger than all of us, and we can't always understand why things happen the way they do."

"For someone who believes in destiny, you spend an awful lot of time trying to control all the events around you," Max said sarcastically.

The shadow of a smile passed over Nasedo's face as he replied, "Just because something is going to happen doesn't mean I'm not going to fight it. It may be a futile battle, but all the same…"

Max looked away, his mind traveling back to Sydney.

"Your Majesty… you want the truth? I don't know why you could heal Elizabeth Parker and not Sydney Davis. I don't know why you had those limitations tonight. I don't think you will ever find anyone who does know. But the fact of the matter is, you can't always do everything. And it is time you realized that."

"But what's the point of even having these gifts if I can't use them when I want to?" Max questioned.

"You want to know the point?" Nasedo replied thoughtfully, his expression clouding. "You want to know why your have those gifts of yours?"

"Yes," Max answered emphatically.

"Then come with me," Nasedo ordered.

Max hesitated for a moment, thinking of all the reasons he shouldn't follow this man who had proven to be anything but trustworthy. The air was getting cooler, the night was getting darker, and so much was happening that he had no control over. Wandering into the desert with someone he barely knew was not a good idea.

"I don't trust you," Max said.

"I'm not the one who's out to get you," Nasedo replied. "I'm the one of the few people in this entire planet… entire universe… who will _never_ try to kill you."

"Just because you won't kill me doesn't mean you are my friend," Max pointed out.

"True," Nasedo agreed. "But I'm the one with the answers."

"You're the one who just told me that there were no answers. That sometimes I just had to accept things on blind faith… like not being able to heal her…"

Nasedo shook his head. "I said that sometimes there aren't answers. Sometimes you can't explain why things happen the way they do. But sometimes there is a reason…"

"Then how do you know what is destiny and fate and what is just a choice you've made?" Max asked. He wasn't sure how he had ended up in a philosophical conversation with a alien killer, but he also wasn't entirely sure why he had gone to the hospital tonight, why he had believed that healing Sydney was a good idea. He still believed it, so strong, so firmly… because, like Liz had said, he needed to believe that he could fix something… since so much else was out of his control.

And yet…

He'd failed.

Was he doomed to fail? He couldn't save Michael from Hank until he'd almost died, he didn't know how to help Isabel, he couldn't comfort Tess during her nightmares…

"You don't." Nasedo shrugged. "No one ever said this was easy. But the past is in the past, and the now is here. You either accept your limitations, accept that you can't do everything, and work with what you do have. Or you wallow in self-pity. It's your choice, and you're the only one who can make it."

Max knew trusting this alien was a stupid, fool-hardy, reckless idea.

And yet…

He stood up, and followed the shape-shifter into the night.

* * *

Next Chapter: Into the Dark

Due: Sun 8/19


	88. Into the Dark

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: This turned out to be a relatively short chapter. Mostly, it's just a set up for the next chapter, which should finally answer many, many questions that have remained unanswered so far.

* * *

Chapter Eighty-Seven: Into the Dark

"Have you seen your brother?" Mrs. Evans asked as she walked into the living room. Isabel was sitting on the sofa, reading a book, and her father was shuffling through a pile of papers he had brought home from the office.

Isabel shook her head at the question. "No, I haven't," she mused, wondering idly where Max was. Chances were, he was over at Liz's house. Or maybe at the hospital, keeping Brody company.

"It's getting late," Mrs. Evans said, pursing her lips and glancing at her watch. "He needs to be home soon."

"Why don't you call him?" Isabel suggested. She let one hand fall to her stomach, resting it there for a moment, before she realized what she was doing. Then she yanked her hand away, as though she'd been burned, and looked down at her lap.

Mr. Evans, noticing his daughter's strange movements, asked in concern, "Izzy? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Dad," Isabel answered. "Just a little nauseous. Must be something I ate today." She couldn't very well tell her father that she might be pregnant, or that she knew that her mother had spoken to someone probably from the FBI.

"If Max calls, tell him he needs to be home soon," Mrs. Evans said finally, glancing from daughter to husband and back. Mr. Evans was still giving Isabel a long, scrutinizing stare. "If he's not home and we haven't heard from him within an hour, I'll give him a call," she added, before leaving the room.

"I'm going to go upstairs," Isabel said to no one in particular. She stood and scurried from the room, and Mr. Evans watched her go in silence, then turned back to his papers.

* * *

Liz held the phone tightly to her ear and stared out of her window at the street below. She'd hoped that Max had only gone for a walk when he left her room, but it had been an hour now, and she'd heard nothing from him. Would he actually be reckless enough to go to the hospital and try to heal Sydney? He hadn't answered his phone the two times she'd tried to call him, and she was starting to get worried.

So she'd decided to do the next best thing, which was to call Tess. At first, she'd toyed with the idea of calling Isabel, but she new that the other girl had so much on her mind, and Max had repeatedly blown her off, and she wasn't sure how Isabel would react to this new bit of information. She doubted that Isabel would simply let her brother walk into what would most certainly be exposure, capture, and possible death without trying to intervene and save him, but she might let her emotions get the better of her, and not be able to think clearly.

Liz had heard that pregnancy did that to people.

Her next thought had been Michael, but she'd ruled that one out almost immediately after remembering the conversation she and Michael had had earlier that day. She still felt guilty that she'd so easily believed that he would cheat on Maria, although in her defense, Maria had believed it also. If she called Michael, would he even bother to answer the phone? To listen to her? He had been incredibly angry when he left Maria's house…

So that had left Tess.

Who answered the phone with her trademark exasperated, "What?"

"I think Max might have gone to the hospital to heal Sydney Davis," Liz said all in a rush. She proceeded to explain everything that had happened between her and her boyfriend since he had climbed through the window, ending with her watching him disappear into the alleyway.

Tess, at least, would act quickly to salvage the situation and worry about her own emotions later. Liz felt relief as she told the story, knowing that the problem would soon be addressed.

What she had not expected, however, was for Tess to turn her anger towards her.

"And you're only telling me this now because…?" Tess asked, her lowered voice shaking with rage. "It's been a hour, Liz! He could be captured by now." Liz could almost hear her shaking her head and rolling her eyes in frustration at Max's stupidity.

Before the brunette had a chance to answer, the phone line went dead, and she knew Tess was already rushing off to find Max.

She stared at her own phone for a moment, then decided to call Maria and see how she was holding up. It would give her something to think about so that she didn't spend all her time dwelling on the complete insanity of this entire situation.

* * *

"Isabel, I need you to find Max," Tess ordered the moment Isabel answered the phone. The petite blonde was already throwing on a sweater and grabbing her car keys, ready to find their wayward family member.

"What…?"

Tess didn't want for Isabel to finish her question. Instead, she interrupted hastily, "I don't have time to explain right now. _We_ don't have time. Just… look, just dream-walk him, okay? Figure out where he is and let me know. Are you at your house? I'm coming over. No… actually, I'm going to the hospital. Call me as soon as you know something. Hurry!" And she hung up the phone.

Walking quickly into the living room, she was momentarily stalled by the sight of Jim and Kyle sitting on the couch, watching a football game. Then she shrugged it off and continued walking to the front door.

As predicted, Jim looked up and asked, "Where are you going?"

Tess glanced over her shoulder and replied, "Out." Jim didn't ask any other questions, and Kyle didn't seem even the least bit interested in her departure.

As Tess stepped out into the night and closed the door behind her, she reflected that, although once and a while it did pain her to see how much Mr. and Mrs. Evans fawned over Max and Isabel compared to Jim's nonchalant disregard for her whereabouts, it also came in handy to have an adopted father who barely batted an eye when she left the house late at night.

* * *

The doctor stared at the results of the most recent blood test, and then at Sydney. Then at the still-open window of her room, the broken door behind him, the destroyed security camera, the confused security guards and concerned father all standing around waiting for his announcement.

"Her infection is gone," he said to Brody, not understanding how this was possible. "I don't get it, but… it's completely gone." He turned to Sydney, adopting a sweet smile and a gentle voice and asked, "How are you feeling?"

Sydney shrugged her tiny shoulders and replied, "Tired. And my tummy hurts a little. Daddy? Daddy, are you there?"

Brody stepped into her line of vision. "I'm right here, sweetie," he said softly, reaching out and running a hand over her forehead and through her tangled hair. "I'm right here."

"Sydney, darling, can you tell me if you saw anyone in the room before we came in?" the doctor asked. He shared a glance with Brody, then added, "Another person, Sydney. Was there another person here?"

Sydney blinked, remembering Max's frantic, worried face. She felt better now… whatever he had done, it had helped her. And her Daddy, he looked so happy, so relieved that she didn't have the infection anymore… whatever the nice man who worked for Daddy had done, it had made Daddy happy also.

And he hadn't wanted her to tell anyone who he was. He'd said that to her, he'd been frightened of something.

She was young. In her mind, the world was divided in to two types of people. Friends… and everybody else. The strange man had helped her and that made them friends. And so she was supposed to help him back. That was how friendship worked.

"No, I didn't see nobody. I woke up when the door fell," Sydney replied, yawning sleepily. "Daddy, I'm tired."

"Go to sleep, Sydney. I'll be here when you wake up," Brody said quickly.

Sydney mumbled sadly, "I know," before letting herself drift back into her dreams.

The doctor sighed and turned to Brody. "I don't know what to tell you, Mr. Davis. I don't know how this is possible. I want to keep her here for a couple days to run some more diagnostic tests, but… the infection appears to be completely gone. She still has the leukemia and it still… well, it's still going to be making her very sick, but I thought… we all thought that her prognosis wasn't very good with the infection and now… it looks like she still has time."

Brody nodded. He knew what had happened. He didn't know who exactly had been in that room, or what exactly they had done to his daughter. But he knew… It was what he had always known, all along. There were people out there with extraordinary powers… aliens, he had called them. Whatever they were, they had been here this night, in this room, helping his daughter.

The doctor left the room, and Brody continued to stare at his sleeping daughter.

"Thank you," he whispered. "Whoever you are, whatever you did… thank you."

He didn't notice the blonde teenager standing in the hallway behind him, watching the entire scene with contemplative sapphire eyes. And he didn't hear the footsteps as she turned and walked away.

* * *

The minute Isabel got a read of Max's location, she called Tess. Who had instructed her to sneak out of her house, call Michael, and meet her at the edge of the desert where Isabel had located Max. Which was how the three of them ended up climbing unsteadily over the rocky terrain, in the dead of night, trying to locate their missing family member.

It was Isabel who saw them first, the two figures standing in the distance, apparently talking. She nudged Michael and pointed, and the three of them hurried towards their destination.

* * *

"Where are we?" Max asked. This place felt familiar, like he was returning to something he had long since forgotten. Everything around him seemed to hum and resonate with a strangely recognizable energy, foreign, exotic, and tantalizingly familiar all at once.

"This is the beginning of your life as Max Evans," Nasedo replied. "This is where everything starts, and this is where everything will end."

Max accepted the cryptic answer in silence. Had he been anyone else, he would have been afraid of the shape-shifter's words, afraid that they were some kind of threat. But he wasn't afraid. He somehow knew that Nasedo didn't mean that everything would end here _tonight_. He was talking about the distant future, that there was something special about this place that meant that it was here, and here alone, where the final moments would come.

"Isabel thinks she's pregnant. The dreams…" He gave Nasedo a questioning look, waiting for an answer.

Nasedo smiled and replied, "Your sister was always prone to overacting. To hysteria." He sounded amused and slightly annoyed, as though somehow Isabel's emotions had frustrated him in the past.

"Does that mean she's not pregnant?" Max asked with abated breath.

"I've told you before, the dreams are supposed to guide you towards where you are meant to be. They show you the past and the future…" He paused, seemingly thinking over his words, then continued, "Your destiny, if you will. You can't escape it, no matter how hard you may try."

Max shivered suddenly, feeling the coldness of the air for the first time that night.

"I don't believe in destiny," he said firmly.

Nasedo rolled his eyes. "Of course not," he said scornfully. "You're too human to understand anything," he mocked. "Humans, when they become overwhelmed by everything that is happening around them, avoid the truth. Avoid reality. They cling to whatever they can, focusing instead on the problems they can fix, as though those will somehow substitute for everything else."

"Like I did with Sydney?" Max asked pointedly, knowing what Nasedo was trying to say. "Do you think I'm weak?"

Nasedo regarded Max in silence for a moment, then answered with a question of his own, "Do you think you're strong?"

"I… I don't know."

Nasedo nodded. "No, I don't suppose you do," he said softly. "You cannot get pregnant from dreams. Not even aliens can do that. Tell your sister that she has nothing to worry about in that regard…"

"Why don't you tell her yourself?" a voice said, and Nasedo and Max turned to see Michael, Isabel, and Tess walking forward, materializing out of the gloom.

"Ah… you made it. Good," Nasedo said with a grim smile. "I was afraid we would have to wait even longer."

"How did you know we were coming?" Tess asked, suspicion lacing her voice.

"Because," Nasedo replied, glancing up at the sky, "this is where you are meant to be right now."

The four aliens glanced up at the sky, and saw it. The constellation, shaped like a v, shinning with brilliant brightness. The stars seemed bright than all the others in the sky, as though they alone dominated the entire expanse of space.

"How can we see those?" Max asked. "When I was helping Brody set up a few exhibits, I saw something about those stars. They're too far away, we shouldn't be able to see them."

Nasedo looked back at Max, and explained "You can't see them, not really. No human will ever be able to see them. The only reason they appear for you is because your mind set them there. It's a… what do you humans call it? Illusion? Like the dreams, meant to guide you towards your destiny."

"And you're sure I'm not pregnant?" Isabel ventured, still needing some assurance on this matter.

"Positive," Nasedo said firmly. "You can only get pregnant the… uh… _human way_." The ghost of a smirk flashed across his face as he asked, "Why? Does that disappoint you?"

Before Isabel could answer, Michael had interrupted the conversation and geared it away from the cryptic talk of their destiny. Glaring at Max, he demanded, "What did you think you were doing? Wasn't it enough that you healed Liz? You had to go for your boss' daughter also?"

Max flushed deep crimson and defended himself, "She was going to die. Hubble… he's FBI. He poisoned her. Probably because of us." The more he thought about this, the angry he became. Hubble had to be FBI, there was no other explanation. Which meant that the FBI had targeted an already dying child just to get to the aliens. But why? What did they hope to accomplish by that? Did they know that Max was going to heal her? Had it been a trap? And, if so, why hadn't they caught him? Or were they even now gathering outside his house, waiting for him to come home?

"And so your brilliant plan was to get yourself captured or killed?" Michael snapped. "What were you thinking?"

"I was just…" Max stopped talking and sighed. He couldn't explain what he had been doing, he didn't even know himself. He didn't feel the same strange pull towards Sydney that he'd always felt with Liz, and yet he'd just needed to heal her…

"He wasn't thinking," Tess said softly, icily. "That was the problem." She glanced at Michael, then back at Max. "Liz called me, told me what had happened between the two of you. I went to the hospital to see if you were there, but you weren't. I saw Brody, though. I don't think he saw me." She hesitated, then said, " Sydney wasn't completely healed. I could feel it… she was still sick."

Max swallowed and nodded. He looked away. "I wasn't able to cure the leukemia. Just… just the infection. She's not going to die… yet."

"You failed?" Michael spat. "So you risked everything to heal someone, and then you actually failed at it. Just great."

"But why did you fail? What's wrong with your healing gift?" Isabel asked, her anger and Max and fear over her dreams and what they might mean momentarily forgotten as she was confronted by this new problem.

"Nothing is wrong with it," Nasedo interrupted. "It's just that sometimes you can't save everyone. Sometimes, people aren't meant to be saved."

"I refuse to believe that a little girl was meant to suffer and die," Max said, repeating his earlier words from the park. Narrowing his eyes at Nasedo, he said, "You told me you had answers. You said you would take me to them. Well…? Where are they?"

"They're right here, your Majesty," Nasedo said, stepping away from Max and gesturing to a rock wall that rose behind him. It the dark, the wall looked nothing different from any other rocky formation they had seen. The New Mexico desert was filled with rocks and cliffs, what was so special about this one?

Max walked slowly to the wall as if he was in some kind of trance. Then he carefully lifted his hand, running it in front of the wall, a the silvery-blue outline of a handprint appeared, glowing eerily in the dark.

"Max? How did you know…?" Isabel asked, stepping closer to him. Michael and Tess followed, and Nasedo watched them with a calculating look in his eyes.

"I don't know," Max whispered. "I just did…" He reached up and pressed his hand flat against the handprint, and the rock wall gave way beneath his palm, molding itself into a narrowing opening. Beyond the opening, they could see the inside of a dark cave.

The four of them filed quietly into the cave, Nasedo entering behind the others. As their eyes adjusted to the dark, almost pitch black space around them, they could almost make out the outlines of the rock walls, the strange symbols on the sandy floor. To their right, four strange chambers sank back into the wall, each covered with a thin membrane-like material.

"Our pods," Max breathed.

And then, behind them, the opening of the cave sealed shut.

* * *

Next Chapter: Four Square

Due: Sun 8/26


	89. Four Square

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: So I feel like I should clear something up. In terms of the pairings of this story, on Earth they will be CC (except, obviously, no Tess/Kyle). Each couple is going to face a lot of difficulties in their relationship, though, so it might not always seem like it is CC. But it always is M/L, M/M, and A/I.

On the other hand, every now and then I am going to bring in bits and pieces of their past lives on Antar because I think they are important to the story. Those pairings are Zan/Ava, Rath/Vilandra, and Khivar/Vilandra. Zan and Ava actually chose to marry each other (it was not an arranged marriage), whereas the betrothal of Rath and Vilandra was arranged. All of this will affect the relationships between Max, Tess, Michael, and Isabel, but that is not to say that the pairings in the story are going to be Max/Tess or Michael/Isabel.

* * *

Chapter Eighty-Eight: Four Square

The silence in the cave was almost overwhelming. The only light was the faint glow emitting from the pods, casting long shadows across the dirt floor.

Isabel walked over to the pods and stared at them, reaching out her fingers to lightly brush the membrane material. It felt cold to her touch, cold and smooth and slightly sticky. Had they really lived in these pods? She had only vague memories of those few moments in the desert before her parents had found them, and but this place seemed so strangely familiar, like a half-forgotten dream.

"What is this?" It was Michael's sharp voice that brought Isabel out of her reverie. She turned and saw Michael and Max leaning over something, and she moved to their side. Tess came as well, and the four of them looked down at the strange, stiff book in Michael's hand.

It was small, and made of a metal-like material. Each page had three holes in it near the binding of the book, and the pages were held together with slender metal rings that looped through the holes and melted into the ends on the other side. The pages were dark and dirty, as though the book had been sitting on the floor of this cave, waiting for them for a long time.

Michael brushed off the layer of dust and flipped open the first page. It was covered with symbols they didn't recognize, like the ones found on the walls of Riverdog's cave. A language none of them speak anymore.

But Isabel was focused on the contents of the next page, and she inhaled a sharp breath when she realized what she was looking at. It was a picture of four children, a boy with dark hair and solemn eyes, a girl with long blonde hair and pale skin, another boy with messy hair and a defiant expression, the last, a girl, with curls and a guarded look about her.

It was the four of them. Tess and Max were paired together, as where Michael and Isabel. She couldn't read what any of the writing said, but she had no doubt that it was about the four of them.

The implications of this drawing struck her and her eyes widened with disbelief, but it was Michael who voiced her thoughts.

"We were made? They _designed_ us?" The book had to be older than they were, and yet they had pictures of what each alien would look like…

"No, that's not possible," Isabel countered. She glanced up at Michael, tearing her eyes away from the book. "We don't know that."

"Then how did they know what we would look like?" Michael asked pointedly, gesturing to the book in his hands.

"Do you understand what you are saying? What that means we are?" Max asked, taking Isabel's side in the argument. "I don't believe it."

"Look at the pairings, Max. You and Tess. Me and Isabel. Just like the dreams. Just like the what Nasedo said… our future. We weren't born, we were engineered, and if you don't want to believe it, fine. But how do you explain this?" Again, he held up the book as proof.

"No," Max retorted. "I belong with Liz."

"Not according to this," Isabel murmured, staring hard at the picture of herself.

"Don't tell me you believe this also?" Max asked, disappointed that she'd switched sides. "Why would someone do that? Why would it matter to them to create aliens and send them to Earth? It doesn't make sense."

"We don't have the answers," Tess said softly, speaking up for the first time since they entered the cave, "but you do." She was staring at Nasedo with unmistakable mistrust mixed with open curiosity. She pointed to the book. "What is this?"

"What do you think it is?" Nasedo replied.

"Enough with the cryptic clues and questions," Max ordered tersely. "We want answers. _Now_."

"You have the answers. Much as you may wish to deny it, you have all the answers right there," Nasedo countered. He took the book from Michael's hands and flipped through the pages, the metal material clinking together in the silence. He paused on the last page and held it up, facing the other four so that they could see the design.

"Constellation v," Max murmured. "I don't… what is that?"

"That," Nasedo said, closing the book and placing it to balance carefully on a slightly protruding edge of the stone wall, "is home."

"And what is this?" Max asked suddenly, turning away from Nasedo as something else in the cave caught his eye. Tucked carefully into one of the darkest corners, half-hidden by shadows and dirt, was something that looked incredibly familiar. Max walked to it, lifting it carefully from the ground, and holding it in the palms of his hands.

An orb. Like the one they had found in Atherton's home.

"It's the other one," Nasedo said. "The other communicator. There were two, and one was thrown from the ship turning the crash. Your enemies found it and hid it, but this one remained safely in the cave."

Max stared at him, thrown by the honesty and completeness of the answer. "A communicator?" he asked. "What does it communicate with."

"With the other orb," Nasedo explained. "There is a message, trapped between the two. When you bring them together, you can hear the message." He shook his head, lost in his own thoughts for a moment, then said, "Your enemies were afraid of what the message might say. What knowledge it would give you. They tried to hide the orb from you. Without both of them, they will not work."

"How do you know all this?" Tess asked suspiciously. "I thought you were still being held by the FBI when all of this happened?" She knew that everything he had said so far had been the truth, she could sense it. But that didn't mean that she could trust him. They had to be careful, now that they were so close to the answers. One wrong step, and the entire FBI could find them.

Nasedo raised an eyebrow at her, a smirk appearing on his face. "You know more than I have given you credit for," he said to all of them. "But… I know more than you give me credit for." He didn't answer the question, but turned away and began to pace back and forth across the length of the cave. "The FBI are close. Agent Pierce… you need to be careful. All of you."

"We know that," Max said wearily.

But Nasedo spun around to stare at him, eyes suddenly burning with an intense light. "No, you don't!" he retorted. "For everything you do know, it still amazes me how you can be so ignorant. You say, over and over, that you understand the danger you are in, but you understand nothing at all! Pierce is here, in Roswell! He knows who you are, knows more about you than you even know about yourselves. And he is fueled by the need for revenge…" He trailed off and shook his head.

There was a silence while the others listened to his words. Max and Isabel exchanged an uneasy glance, but Tess didn't seem overly perturbed by Nasedo's outburst. She was still staring at him with icy mistrust. Michael, alone, seemed to be truly contemplating what Nasedo had said.

"How is he alive?" Michael asked at last.

"What?"

"Pierce. You said he was the one who first captured you. Well… it's been several decades since the crash. How is this Pierce still alive?" Michael explained. He remembered what Max had told the group he had learned from Nasedo the first time they met in the woods during the camping trip. It was one of the questions that had bugged him since them, one of the lingering doubts. How could that Pierce and this Pierce be the same.

Nasedo glanced at Michael for a moment, then said, "You know, you are a lot sharper than most adults here in Roswell give you credit for." Michael glared at him, but Nasedo ignored it and continued, "The Pierce that captured me is not this Pierce. This Agent Donald Pierce is the second in his family to be interested in aliens… the one of that captured me was the first…"

"His father?" Tess asked softly. Nasedo nodded at her, and she questioned shrewdly, "And what exactly happened to his father?"

Nasedo gave a short bark of harsh laughter. "Daddy Pierce was a little too ambitious for his own good, I guess," he said cruelly. "I don't know the details, I was still in the white room at the time…" He stopped abruptly, his eyes becoming a little less foreign, a little softer, a little gentler. "The white room," he said again. "It is not a place you ever want to end up."

It took Isabel a moment to realize that what she had mistakenly identified as compassion in his eyes was actually fear. She shivered almost imperceptibly. What horrors did they do that would cause even a cold blooded killer to feel fear?

"Yeah, we know," Max said dryly. "Just tell us what happened to the older Agent Pierce."

Nasedo smirked. "Well, what I can piece together from bits and pieces of what I heard while I was in the white room, and from my own knowledge and things I've learned since I got out… I would say that your enemies got to him."

"How?" Isabel murmured.

"He was an ambitious man. Greedy, too. The man didn't have… what do your human friends call it… a soul?" Nasedo smiled grimly at the memory of the elder Agent Pierce. "He was as cruel and sadistic as they come. But he was convinced that there were other aliens out there besides me and he was determined to locate them. He wasn't content with just one alien, he needed all of them. He needed to prove that he was right, that we were a threat to him, to this planet…"

"What happened?" Max pressed.

Nasedo shrugged, no longer interested in the story. The fate of Pierce did not concern him, the man was gone and the past was in the past. Right now was all that mattered. "My guess is that he found the other aliens, but that meeting didn't end the way he wanted it to." He glanced from Max to Isabel, and leered, "They never did find his body. At least… not all of it."

"How old was his son, Donald Pierce, when this happened?" Isabel whispered, horrified.

"Just a kid, I think," Nasedo said thoughtfully, trying to remember when exactly he'd learned of the other man's disappearance. In the white room, all the days blended together, and he could never really separate everything out in his mind. But he was fairly certain that the elder Pierce's untimely demise had been early on in his captivity.

"Is that why Donald Pierce is after us?" Tess demanded. "Because he thinks we killed his father?"

"Either that, or he just takes after his father," Nasedo said dismissively. He had brought them here to teach them about themselves, and they wanted to ask him questions about humans? It was a waste of everyone's time.

But he saw the stubborn look on Michael's face, the way Max and Isabel kept exchanging worried looks, the mistrust still lingering in Tess' eyes… And he knew they would not let the subject drop until they were satisfied with the answers.

And he did need their trust right now, if he was ever to be able to control them.

"Yes. He's after you because of revenge," Nasedo said at last. "For him, it's personal." He shook his head gloomily. "I had a few dealings with him, back when I was in the white room. He's cruel, just like his father, but underneath it all, there is a lot of real rage and grief. He won't stop until he's avenged his father, and he'll destroy anything that stands in his path. He's learned a lot about you from stories his father always told him as well and information he discovered while working for the FBI. He's dangerous, more than any of you seem to realize." He bit his lip, debating what else to say, then added, "And he's closer to finding you than anyone else has ever been."

Max turned away from Nasedo, accepting his words in silence. It was hard for him to truly view Agent Pierce as the enemy, now that he knew the full story. Perhaps the elder Pierce was truly evil, but this younger one was just trying to avenge his murdered father. If anyone hurt Mr. or Mrs. Evans, could Max honestly say that he wouldn't do exactly the same thing?

"You wouldn't," Isabel whispered under her breath, her voice low enough so that only Max could hear her. He gave her a confused look, and she elaborated, "You wouldn't do what Pierce has done. You wouldn't murder people."

Max didn't even bother asking her how she knew what he had been thinking. Instead, he just raised one eyebrow questioningly and replied, "How do you know that?"

"Because you're not a killer, Max," Isabel answered honestly. She stepped away from him, over to the side of the cave where the strange book was resting. She picked it up and started flipping through the heavy pages, wondering what the strange symbols and signs meant.

"I didn't bring you here so that you could wander around in the dark," Nasedo said after a moment of silence. "You wanted answers." He nodded to the orb. "You have the other one, don't you? Put them together and see what the message is." He said it as though it was obvious, as though he'd been waiting all along for them to do this.

"How do you know we have the other one?" Max asked sharply, spinning around to face the shape-shifter.

"I told you," Nasedo answered with a smirk, "I know more than you give me credit for."

"Then do you know how the other one came to be located in Atherton's house?" Isabel asked curiously.

Nasedo tilted his head as he regarded her for a moment. "Atherton? James Atherton? That much I did not know… So it was there that they hid it…" He seemed lost in his own thoughts for a moment, considering this bit of information he had received from Isabel. Then he said, "I can put together bits and pieces to form what would be simply guesswork. But I do believe most of my guesses would be correct." He said it without arrogance or pride, just stating what he believed to be fact.

"So? Tell us," Michael ordered.

"You were supposed to receive memories when you landed on this planet," Nasedo said slowly, leaving out the part of the story where he had been the one to ensure that they did not receive those memories. "You were not supposed to crash. Something went wrong, and the safety device that would have relayed all your memories to you while you were incubating in your pods was destroyed. The ship, having a failsafe for such an event, protected you by building this cave around the pods. I was thrown from the cave, as was the orb communicator. The other one, as I mentioned, remained safely within the protection from the ship."

"So why didn't you just take the orb and come back in here? You would have been safe," Isabel said pointedly.

Nasedo laughed derisively. "Don't you think I would have if I'd had the chance? Pierce… the elder one… was on the scene moments after the crash. He found me, although somehow he did not see the orb. I was taken almost immediately to the white room. The orb managed to bury itself in the sand and rock well enough to stay hidden." He sighed and turned away from the others, staring at the rough hewn walls, caught in his own memories. "That is what I know for a fact. What comes after that… those are just hypothesis."

"Enlighten us anyway," Max said dryly.

"For decades, the orb, the pod chamber, this cave… it all remained hidden. Then you awoke. Why then, why at that particular moment, I do not know. But the four of your awoke, going your separate ways. Your awakening left an imprint on the world. Energy, if you will. Energy that other aliens can sense, and are drawn to. The others came here, after you had left, and found the orb. They did not want you to have it, so they took it. Stole it."

Michael leaned over to Max and whispered, "It matches with what Riverdog said. That our enemies came here around the time we woke up. That they were drawn to something."

Max nodded to Michael and asked Nasedo, "Why didn't they just kill us then?"

"They are afraid of you, though you hardly seem to warrant it now," Nasedo replied grimly, giving them a cold once-over. "You have power you hardly realize, and they did not want to take all three of you on. Besides, they knew that one of you was missing, and they needed to find her as well. All of you must die for them to succeed." His eyes raked carelessly over Tess as he added, "They did find her, eventually."

"Andrew and Jessica…" Isabel whispered. "The silver handprint." They'd known, all along, that the deaths of Andrew and Jessica Harding were alien related. But to actually hear it confirmed… Isabel chanced a quick glance at Tess. The fourth alien was pale, and stood so still Isabel thought she might have stopped breathing. Her expression was unreadable except for the eyes.

Those eyes…

So full of almost uncontrollable hatred.

"Of course, that did not work out to their advantage, did it?" Nasedo added, sounding pleased about this. 'Fate works in funny ways. They killed the two parents, but that did not leave you vulnerable, did it?" he asked Tess. "Instead, it brought you to Roswell. The four of you, together… Your enemies did not want to attack."

"Why do they think we have all this power? We don't," Isabel protested. "We're just teenagers…"

"Oh, but you are so much more than that," Nasedo countered. "Besides, there was another reason they did not dare attack you." He stopped, seeming to consider something, then replied, "You have something. I can't tell you what it is…" he held up a hand to forestall Michael's angry outburst, "…but you will learn in time. This… object… they need. Desperately. And they do not know where it is, or if you have learned to use it… so they were afraid. Afraid of you, of what you might do. Instead of attacking, they left. And they will not come after you until they are sure they can win… but the time is drawing closer. They are coming soon."

"_Fascinating_," Michael deadpanned. "But that still does not explain how the orb ended up in Marathon, Texas."

Nasedo glared at Michael, annoyed at his cavalier attitude. Did he not understand the grave danger they were all in, now that the others were coming?

But, Nasedo reminded himself, Michael did not know who these others were, did not understand just how dangerous they could be.

"My guess? During the decades between when the others came and found the orb and when you hatched, James Atherton made the mistake of trying to learn about aliens from your enemies. I don't know how or why he found them, and I imagine that will always remain a mystery. But once he saw the orb, saw what it was, he knew that aliens existed."

"Like he wrote in his book," Max hissed to Michael. "That the strange symbol we keep seeing is proof that aliens exist. Somehow, the orb and the symbol are linked."

Nasedo continued blithely, "So they killed him. Stupid human… he should have known better than to stick his head where it did not belong. But I imagine the others had now learned the danger of keeping the orb with them. It was bound to attract attention. So they decided to hide it in the home of the man they had just killed."

"And the symbol that appeared on the wall? The x and the four ovals with the spirals inside?" Max asked. "What did that mean? Why did I feel when it was changed?"

Nasedo raised an eyebrow. This was not a part of the story that he knew. Still, he had his guesses.

"I do not understand," Nasedo said. "Explain what happened."

Michael and Max exchanged looks, then Max glanced at Tess. She gave him a slight shrug, a sign that he might as well go ahead and tell the story. So Max briefly explained how when they had come to Atherton's home, they'd found the symbol buried beneath the plaster of a wall in his basement, and the orb behind the symbol. And how when Michael had brushed his hand over the symbol, Max had felt the change even though he was in the car with Tess, not at the house yet.

"The orb is linked to you," Nasedo said at last. "To all four of you, but especially to you. When the others hid it, it did not want to be hidden. It was created to be found, so when they put it behind the wall, it projected your symbol onto the wall. The others knew not to try to erase the symbol, that it would just summon you, so they hid the symbol behind more plaster. But the orb always calls for you, always wants you to find it. That's why you ended up in Marathon. That's why you felt the pull in the car."

"What is the symbol?" Isabel questioned.

"It is your symbol. The four of you, linked together. We call it the Four Square. It is what you are, what you were always meant to be." He nodded again to the orb. "Your answers are there. I've told you all I can. The rest, you must discover for yourselves."

Tess crossed her arms over her chest, somewhat defiantly, and asked, "How do you know all this? I mean… I know you said it is just guesswork, but why do you guess this? Why do you think this is what the others… our enemies… did? Why not some other chain of events?"

"Because this is what I would have done, had I been in their position," Nasedo replied honestly.

Max just stared at Nasedo for a moment, weighing his options. Then he turned to Tess, Michael, and Isabel and said, "Meet back here tonight. Just us, no humans. I'll bring the other orb." In the darkness, he could barely see the expression of incredulous anxiety on Isabel's face, but he could sense her unease at his decision. "Izzy… don't worry," he added in a low voice, knowing it was a pointless thing to say. She was going to worry anyway, but he hated making her fear more afraid than she already was. He knew how afraid she was of finding these answers, of what they might actually be.

Max walked over to the edge of the cave and waved his hand at the wall, and it slid away to reveal an entrance back into the desert. He took Isabel's hand, pulling her away from the others and walking into the night.

Michael glanced at the two siblings, then at Tess, then he too left.

Only Tess remained behind, still standing in the cave, still very much aware of where she was and who was there with her. She could feel Nasedo's eyes on her back as she stared at the pods, the strange material that covered the place where she had been… hatched.

Finally, she turned to Nasedo. "Why are you telling us all this?" she asked.

Nasedo's eyes widened at her question. "Don't you want the answers?" he replied.

"Knowledge is power," Tess said softly. "Why would you give up your power? Your influence and control?"

Nasedo hesitated, unsure how much he should reveal to this alien. She was less trusting of him than either of the alien men, but perhaps more trusting than the Princess. He would have to be careful around her, but she might also be easier to use than the others. Her fears were obvious, written all over her face for anyone who bothered to look.

He remembered when he had first heard what some of the students called her in school. Ice Queen. As though she had no emotions, as though the only thing she cared about was her reputation. Everything hidden behind a mask.

Ridiculous. If people would just look at her face, they could see everything.

But humans were such imperceptive people.

Finally, he opted to tell her the truth. Or, at least, as much of the truth as he could without ruining it all. But it wouldn't do to lie to her, not if he needed her trust.

"Because you four are no use to me if you're dead. And _they_ are coming," Nasedo explained. "They _will_ find you and they will attack, and you _must_ be prepared."

"Who is they? And how can we be prepared for an attack? We're teenagers," Tess retorted, still frowning slightly.

"I can't tell you," Nasedo said, almost regretfully. He glanced at the orb that the others had left on the floor of the cave. "There are some things you need to figure out for yourselves."

* * *

"I cannot believe the two of you thought you could just disappear like that!" Mrs. Evans said, disapproval and disappointment clear in her voice as she stared at her two teenage children. "And you, Isabel, taking off like that just after we told you we were worried about where Max was so late."

Max and Isabel exchanged glances as they lowered their heads in shame and regret. They had arrived back from their excursion to the strange cave only to find both their parents waiting for them, demanding an explanation for their behavior. They had clearly stayed out far too late, and it was no longer possible to lie their way through an excuse.

"I'm sorry, Mom," Max said. "I was at Liz's and I just… lost track of time."

"You were at Liz's house? This late? What did her parents have to say about that?" Mr. Evans asked grumpily.

"Her parents went to bed, they didn't know I was still there," Max said, praying silently that he would have a chance to fill Liz in on this story before his parents decided to talk to the Parkers and determine if their son was telling the truth.

Mrs. Evans clucked her tongue disapprovingly. "Well, they should not have gone to bed while their daughter was still hanging out with her boyfriend in her room!"

"Mom, nothing happened,' Max protested. "Liz and I just talked. We haven't really seen each other much, and I wanted to catch up… I promise, it wasn't anything bad. Just talking."

Mrs. Evans stared at her son for a moment, and Max shivered, feeling as though she had somehow x-rayed right through him. But she sighed and shook her head, annoyed but apparently excepting his story.

"And you, Isabel?" Mr. Evans asked, directing everyone's attention to the blonde.

Isabel answered promptly, "I was at Michael's. He was having problems with Maria, and I was having problems with Alex… Did I tell you about Alex? Alex Whitman? We've sort of been dating, but it just hasn't been easy because he and my friends don't really get along much… and it's just difficult for me, you know? So I was talking to Michael about that, trying to get a guy's perspective on it all. So that I can see where Alex is coming from and try to be more understanding. You know?"

"Of course, sweetheart," Mrs. Evans said. "I know exactly what that is like. You know, a lot of my friends didn't really like your father when they first met him, but they got over it eventually. It's just a matter of making sure that you know what you want. If Alex makes you happy, the rest of your friends will accept him eventually. You'll see."

Max stared at his mother in incredulous shock. "That's it?" he demanded. "I get the third degree because I was at Liz's and you don't even get upset with Isabel? She was out just as late as I was, and at Michael's!"

"Yes, well, you should have come home earlier, Izzy," Mrs. Evans admitted. "I know how you can get so caught up in friend and boyfriend troubles, but just try to pay more attention to the time, dear. Alright?"

Isabel nodded. "Of course, Mom. I am really sorry. I only meant to be over at Michael's for half-an-hour and I came home as soon as I saw how late it was."

"Alright," Mr. Evans said, "we won't ground either of you this time. But next time you are out this late, you _will_ get grounded. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Dad," the two teenagers chorused.

"Good. It's late, go to bed," Mr. Evans said wearily, running a hand through his hair. He and Mrs. Evans left the room, wandering back to their own bedroom, and Max turned to Isabel in anger.

"Oh, it's _horrible_, Mom! I've got these problems with Alex and my friends, and it is just so emotionally draining," he mimicked her higher voice. "I cannot believe you used that as an excuse."

Isabel laughed and rolled her eyes. "You're just jealous that Mom didn't get as upset with me," she taunted. In a harder tone, she added coolly, "Besides, you deserve to be in more trouble. If you hadn't been stupid enough to risk everything to try and save that little girl, I wouldn't have had to leave the house to find you."

Max glanced worriedly at the hallway, but his parents were long gone by now. "She was going to die," he justified himself. "I couldn't just…"

"Yes, you could!" Isabel hissed. "Listen to yourself! You're talking like you and you alone have to save everyone. And why? So you could clear your conscious? Feel better about yourself? While all of us languish in white rooms being tortured by FBI agents?"

"Nobody saw me," Max protested.

"You think nobody saw you. You have no idea if that is actually true. And even if you did manage to escape detection, it was luck, and nothing else," Isabel retorted. "Can you be anymore selfish?"

"Selfish? For not wanting people to die?" Max demanded hotly.

"No, Max. For not wanting the people _you_ care about to die. The rest of them… Ms. Topolski, Agent Pierce's father, Dr. Drake, Hank… Do you even think about them? Do you ever lose sleep at night wondering if you could have saved them? Or do they just not matter to you? You only bothered to save Liz and Sydney, and then you risked all of our lives to do it! Like you don't even care about Michael, Tess, or I. _That_ is what makes you selfish!"

"I couldn't have saved any of them," Max whispered. "I wasn't there when they died. It was out of my control."

"What about Amy DeLuca?" Isabel asked pointedly. "You could have saved her, and you didn't."

"She didn't die," Max replied.

"But you didn't know she was going to be okay at the time, did you? We all thought she might die. The _doctor_ thought she might die," Isabel snapped.

"You're the one who said I shouldn't heal her," Max countered. "You're the one who said it was too risky."

"And I would have said exactly the same thing if you'd asked me about Sydney," Isabel said softly. "But would you have listened? Or did you know exactly what I would have said so you avoided asking me? Don't you get it, Max? You talk about this like you didn't have any other choice, but you did. You always do! And you just keeping making the wrong one, over and over and over. Who's it going to be next time, Max? One of Dad's colleagues? A teacher at school? A random stranger on the street? When's it going to stop? When are you going to stop?" Without another word, she turned and stormed out of the living room, leaving Max to stare after her in silence.

* * *

"Hey," Alex said casually, walking up to Isabel where she stood at her locker. Isabel turned to face him, and her expression became carefully blank.

"Now's not really a good time, Alex," she said simply, slamming her locker shut a little harder than she meant to. She had too many other problems on her mind, and Alex had broken up with her, he had walked away. She didn't want to deal with this again, didn't want to keep getting sucked back into the question of who should she chose; Alex or her friends?

"This will only take a second," Alex said.

Isabel sighed and ran a hand through her hair, absently pulling at a few long strands. It was really a matter of Tess or Alex. She'd have picked Alex over all the others, she knew that now. But Tess was her family, and she was closer to the other alien now than she had been in a really long time. How could she throw that away?

"Can we talk later?" She'd turned to go, but Alex caught her arm.

"This will only take a second," Alex repeated. She was about to protest, but he continued quickly, "Maria and Liz told me about… everything." His eyes traveled down to her stomach and then up to her face. "I know we aren't really together and I know that I was the one to walk away, but I just… I wanted you to know that we're all in this together. Even if it doesn't seem like it, even if it seems like it is something that is affecting you only… or more than the rest of us… I'm still here, okay? I'm still… I'm still here. I know that this isn't just a simple teenager problem, it's bigger and more complicated than that. And I know you probably feel alone. So I just want you to know that you aren't. You're… I'm… I'm still here. We're all still here. No matter what personal problems we're having… We're in this together."

He turned and walked away, and Isabel watching him disappear into the hallway, feeling happier and sadder and more confused than she ever had before. It wasn't until the bell rang and she had to run to class that she realized she hadn't had a chance to tell Alex she wasn't actually pregnant.

* * *

Next Chapter: Fate and Destiny

Due: Sun 9/2


	90. Fate and Destiny

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: And once again this turned into a much longer chapter that I thought it would be and I still didn't get through everything I thought I would have in it… So if I promised anyone answers to specific questions, and you don't see them in this chapter, I swear they are coming, I just haven't gotten there yet.

* * *

Chapter Eighty-Nine: Fate and Destiny

Michael was the first to arrive at the caves. The sun was slowly setting over the distant horizon, turning the sky a fiery orange and red. The air was cooling down as night approached, but it was still warm, as it always was in Roswell. He'd opted to walk to the cave instead of catching a ride with Max and Isabel, and he was now hot and sweaty. Running a hand through his hair, he took a seat in the shade of the cliffs and waited.

Max and Isabel arrived next. Max was holding the orb, wrapped in a dishtowel, in the palm of his hands. Isabel was looking away from him, out across the desert, and her entire body was stiff. Max kept shooting furtive glances at her, as though he wanted to say something, but she refused to listen. It was clear that they had been fighting.

Tess came last, a few moments after everyone else. She parked her car and climbed out, then stopped and glanced back towards the town. For a moment, it appeared that she might actually turn and head back, but she walked, slowly and reluctantly, towards the cave. There was something about all this that bothered her, but she couldn't quite place what it was.

Nasedo, too, came, but he was already there, waiting, blending in with the scenery. He stepped out of the shadows as Tess arrived, but if his sudden appearance startled anyone, they did not show it.

"Ready?" he asked.

Max nodded, and waved his hand over the cliff face. The glowing handprint appeared, and he hesitated, staring at it, before placing his hand on the rock and letting the cave open itself for them.

Max walked into the cave, and Isabel followed behind him. It took them both a moment before their eyes adjusted to the dim light and they could once again see the details on the membranes of the glowing pods, the sharp jutting of the rock wall where it curved around to form a small ledge with the strange book on it, the other orb, wrapped in cloth, still lying on the floor.

Michael walked straight to the orb and picked it up. Tess glanced at him as she slid into the cave and moved to the side. After Nasedo had entered as well, the wall sealed shut, locking them in the darkness.

"What now?" Isabel murmured as she walked over to Michael and placed her hand on the orb he held. "How do these work?"

"Just concentrate," Nasedo instructed. "Concentrate, and the answers will come."

Max unwrapped his own orb, and Tess joined him, somewhat unenthusiastically. Across from them, Michael and Isabel unwrapped their own orb, letting the cloth fall to the ground. The orbs began to hum, then to vibrate, in Max and Michael's hands. Their smooth surfaces started to glow an eerie blue and green that slowly radiated outward. Abruptly, two flashes of light expanded from the orbs in streams, meeting each other halfway between the group and exploding into a brilliant burst. When the light faded, the hologram of a woman could be seen, faint and flickering, standing on the ground between them.

Isabel gasped, and Max shot a quick look at Nasedo. The shape-shifter was showing no emotion.

The woman began to speak. "If you are seeing me now, it means that you are alive and well," she said, her hollow voice echoing off the walls around the confined space. I take this form because it will be familiar to you, and it will help you to understand what I am about to say." She paused dramatically, as though waiting for something. Then she sighed and said, "You have lived before. You were killed… perished in the conflict that is destroying or planet. But your essence was duplicated, cloned, and mixed with human genetic materials so that you might be recreated into hybrids. Half-human, half-Antarian."

Again, she paused, and Isabel whispered, "Antarian?"

"Antar," the woman murmured with a bittersweet smile. "Our home." She shook her head and glanced over her shoulder, as though expecting someone else to appear. Her face was lined with apprehension and worry. "But so much of this, of course, you already remember, and I only tell you now so as to remind you of the war we are fighting, of the people who are waiting for your return."

"But we don't remember," Michael protested to the figure. "Why do you think we would?"

"She can't hear you, it's just a message," Nasedo said quietly, silencing Michael with a stern look. "Listen, she still has much more to say."

"You do not remember your deaths. We programmed you so that you would not…" the woman continued. "It was not because we wished to keep it secret from you. Our scientists thought it would be harmful to your development… the human brain is notoriously easy to twist, corrupt, or unbalance. An excess of memory information could be quite harmful." She shook her head. "Oh, please forgive me for lying to you, my son and daughter."

Isabel reacted instantly, grabbing Max's arm in alarm and anticipation. "Is that… Is that our _mother_?"

But the woman was just a recording and could not hear or answer any questions. Instead, she began to talk again, slowly, telling a story, "Khivar breached the gates. We do not know how, but perhaps there was a traitor in our midst. We were not prepared, my son, and he went first for your young bride. When he killed her… oh… the look in your eyes when you saw her body…" She broke off, tears filling her eyes, and wiped them away quickly with one hand. Her voice sounded muffled and choked as she struggled to keep the sobs at bay. "I am sorry to tell you of such painful times for I know how much you loved her… The rebels also killed your second-in-command while he tried to protect his betrothed, your sister, from them. You fought them all after those three deaths, but you could not hope to win… he was too strong. Khivar killed you as well, and I… I fled from the palace to the safety of the Resistance camps. We had to leave everything behind."

"Oh, God…" Max breathed as he watched the woman… his _mother_… cry. He felt his heart breaking for her, for the grief and guilt and fear and pain etched into every line of her face. The utter despair and hopelessness in her voice sent shivers down his spine. How was he supposed to help her?

"I tell you this so that you understand how desperate we all are." The woman took a deep, shuddering breath, and pulled herself back together. "Your enemies will have followed you to Earth. You will know them only by the evil within. The four of you must come together and fight them so that one day you can come back home and save us all. And so that one day I may hold you in my arms again. I live for that moment. Help us. Without you, we cannot truly hope to win. What is a planet without its King, its Queen, its Princess, or its General? Without the Royal Four… Oh, how I do miss you all."

She wrapped her arms around her chest and turned around in a full circle, as though checking to make sure she was unobserved. Something in her eyes warned them all that whatever she was about to say next, it was beyond important.

"We did not give you another memory as well, for fear that your enemies might find you while you were still young and take this information from you because you had not yet learned how to protect you thoughts. The Granolith…" She gave a slightly bemused smile and said, "Yes, I know what you are thinking. The Granolith does not exist. It is just legend, myth. We thought so too, but… we were wrong. Your enemies seek it, but we have kept it from them. Kept it safe. We entrust it to you, the Royal Four. You will find it when you are meant to, and you will understand then… I wish I could tell you more now, but my time is running out. There are reasons for things that you cannot ever truly see, but the reasons exist nonetheless. When things are meant to happen, meant to come together… Trust me, my children. One day, you _will_ understand." She began to flicker quickly, fading in and out. "I must go…" She looked around once more. "I love you," she whispered before her image faded completely from view.

The orbs stopped glowing, leaving the cave dark and the silence heavy as the four lost teenagers stared at each other, unsure what to think or say.

Isabel was the first to break the silence. "I don't… I don't understand. Any of it." She looked from Max to Nasedo and asked, "Why did she think we would remember?"

Nasedo eyed the girl and replied carefully, "You were supposed to remember. You were programmed to remember, but… during the crash, something went wrong. The safety devices programmed to protect your memories were destroyed. You did not remember anything."

Max frowned. He didn't like the way the shape-shifter had answered that question. Something about it just seemed wrong to him, as though there was more to the story than met the eye. On a hunch, he demanded pointedly, "How did the safety devices fail?"

Nasedo met Max's eyes and lied coolly, "I don't know." He couldn't very well admit to tampering with them, but he knew the King was suspicious.

Fortunately for him, Michael took that moment to ask a question of his own, thereby drawing the attention away from the topic at hand. "Who exactly are we?" He gestured to the spot where the woman-hologram had been moments before. "She made us sound… royal."

"You are," Nasedo replied. He nodded his head to Max. "You were the king of our planet. You and your bride, our Queen," his eyes strayed to Tess, "were much beloved by our people." He turned to Isabel and informed her, "You were a Princess, the only sister to the ruling monarch. You were betrothed to your brother's second-in-command," he glanced at Michael, "the General of the royal armies."

"And that woman was our mother?" Isabel whispered. "She was so… beautiful."

"What is this thing she spoke of?" Max asked. "This Granolith?"

"A myth," Nasedo replied. "Or, at least, we thought it was. A source of great power said to belong to the ruling family of our planet. It was lost for millennia, and many thought it just a… how do human's say it… an old wives' tale?" He gave a shrug. "Apparently it was not a legend. Khivar, your sworn enemy, wants it. If he can find it, if he can control it, he will be truly unstoppable. Your enemies would not attack you until they are sure that you do not have it… they fear it more than they fear even you."

"Where is it?" Max asked.

"I do not know, and even if I did, I wouldn't tell you. Like your mother, the Queen, said, you will find it when you are meant to. I cannot tell you everything. You must discover some truths for yourselves." He walked over to the wall of the cave and it opened for him, letting him out into the dim night. "You should talk amongst yourselves about all this," he directed. "I will seek you again when the time is right." And he was gone, disappearing into the desert.

There was another silence, then Isabel murmured, "I don't trust him. Do you?"

"I don't know, Isabel. I don't want to, but I'm not sure we can afford to _not_ trust him right now," Michael answered, staring at the still-open entranced to the cave. "Not with the FBI and other aliens out there, trying to find us, trying to…"

"Kill us?" Tess asked. It was the first time she had spoken since the beginning of the message, and her voice carried a strange inflection to it. There was a look in her eyes at Max didn't like, a combination of anger and something else he couldn't quite identify. "I have to go." She started towards the opening of the cave.

"What?" Isabel asked incredulously. "But… Tess, we need to talk about this."

"Later," Tess snapped. She frowned at the others and added, "It seemed pretty straight forward anyway. Evil people trying to kill us. Let's add them to the list of problem's we're facing." And then she too was gone, and this time the cave sealed shut behind her, pitching the cave back into semi-darkness.

"What's her problem?" Michael growled, and Max shook his head. He was used to Tess' rapidly changing moods, but he couldn't figure out why she was so upset about this. He slanted a look at Isabel, who shrugged, not having the answers either.

There was another silence, then Michael said carefully, "I always knew there was something out there. I just didn't know it was this big."

"I'm a king," Max stuttered, as the entire weight of what he had just heard finally settled over him. "I'm supposed to lead… I don't… how?"

"Well, I guess that explains why we keep looking to you to lead us," Isabel quipped, giving Max a reassuring smile. She could see the look in his eyes, haunted and confused and upset and lost, and she knew she'd probably be feeling the exact same way if she had just been told that the entire fate of a planet rested on her. As it was, she was still filled with energy, a bubbling excitement at finally seeing her mother, finally receiving the answers to the questions they had always wanted to ask. "Our mother," she breathed, still amazed.

"_Your_ mother," Michael stressed, looking suddenly sour. "Not mine." He turned away from Isabel and Max and walked over to the pods. He was filled with a sudden furious anger, a sense of injustice at how incredibly unfair this all was. Max and Isabel were the ones with the perfect human family, the parents who loved them. Max and Isabel were the ones who had always had each other, always been together, as they were growing up. And now Max and Isabel were the ones who got to see their mother, their real mother, and hear her voice.

The two alien siblings were left staring at each other in concern, holding the orbs in their outstretched palms. Max quickly dropped the orb to the floor, and Isabel did likewise, and they rolled to the side of the cave.

"Michael…" Isabel started, but Michael interrupted her.

"I should go also," he said. "I have stuff to do." He felt the sudden need to talk to Maria, to work this out, to have her reassurance that she was still there for him. He mentally kicked himself for letting his anger cloud his judgment in their last conversation. He knew he had a reason to be upset with her, but he should have tried to see it from her point of view also.

"Wait, Michael, I didn't…" But Isabel's words were lost on the taciturn hybrid as he stormed over to the door of the cave and waved his hand at it, forcing it open. "Michael," Isabel tried again, but she got no response besides the gruff stare he cast at her over his shoulder as he walked away.

"Great," Max snapped, throwing his hands up in the air. "First Tess, now Michael…"

"Can you blame him, Max?" Isabel asked softly, now looking like she was close to tears. "It wasn't fair to him… he doesn't get to see his mother…" She trailed off and shook her head. "Come on, we should go to. Mom and Dad will be angry if we're out too late, and we don't really want to get on their bad side right now."

Max gave Isabel an annoyed glare, still frustrated by how she'd managed to weasel her way out of trouble the night before, and followed her from the cave. The two of them paused and glanced over their shoulders as the smooth surface of the rocky outcropping fell into place, concealing their secret from the world. Then Max glanced up at the sky, giving the stars one long, thoughtful look, before following his sister towards their car.

* * *

Michael knocked on the door and waited until it swung open to reveal Maria standing there, looking worn out and annoyed. When she saw him, however, she stepped aside and let him enter, a strange expression on her face. She was both hopeful that they could talk and annoyed that he was still not so understanding of her fears.

"Is your Mom home?" Michael asked without preamble, glancing around the living room, wondering if they were alone.

"She's in her room. I think she's going to sleep soon. She gets tired easily, ever since the accident," Maria explained.

"It was a false alarm," Michael said abruptly, not really reacting to Maria's words. "Isabel's not pregnant. She can't get pregnant from dreams, only the human way." He rubbed the back of his head, relief evident on his features. "Look, I didn't mean to imply that our relationship was stupid."

"Then you shouldn't have said it," Maria snapped tiredly.

Michael glared at her and replied, "And you should have understood why I was so upset about all this. It's _Isabel_. She's my family."

"And I'm your girlfriend," Maria snapped back. "The one who patiently puts up with you even though you never take her on nice dates, never bring her flowers, never do anything romantic. All you want is to make-out in the Eraser Room."

"What's wrong with that?" Michael demanded, folding his arms over his chest.

"That's not all there is to a relationship, Michael," Maria spat, "and I can't keep putting in all the effort. It's like you don't even want to try!"

"Well I'm sorry I have to take time away from us to do useless and pointless things like avoiding the FBI," Michael retorted, lowering his voice to make sure there was no chance he would be overheard by Amy. "Do you have any idea what my day was like?"

"No, because you avoided me completely at school," Maria answered coolly.

Michael didn't say anything for a moment, then looked away. "I didn't mean to, I was just… there's a lot going on right now."

"Like Max trying to expose you all by healing his boss' daughter?" Maria asked with a grim smile. At Michael's startled look, she elaborated, "Liz told me last night. I talked to her right after she'd called Tess to put a stop to the whole thing."

"Yeah, well, Maxwell being an idiot is the least of our issues," Michael said with a shrug. "Anyway, I don't know why you would care that he put himself in danger."

"Because he put you in danger also and I happen to care about that," Maria said stiffly. "Not to mention Alex and Liz. We're all a group and we're all affected by each other's decisions."

"So do you think Maxwell shouldn't heal people? Maybe it would have been better if he had just let Liz die?" Michael snapped irritably. This conversation was not going according to plan. They were supposed to be resolving their differences, not arguing.

Maria glowered and answered, "Don't even joke about that. It's not funny."

"Wasn't joking," Michael muttered under his breath. He turned his back on Maria and walked over to the living room, glancing out at the street, scanning for anything out of the ordinary. After the message they had heard in the cave, he was half-expecting some strange alien to leap out of the bushes and try to kill them all.

"What are you looking for?" Maria asked, walking over to Michael. "And what was so eventful about your day that you couldn't be bothered to even talk to me at school?"

Michael gave her a sideways look and replied casually, "We discovered who we were in past lives." Maria's mouth fell open, and Michael smirked slightly at her sudden loss of speech. But he sobered as he thought of everything they knew. "I was betrothed to Isabel. That's where the dreams come from."

"You were _betrothed_…?" Maria pushed away from him quickly, taking a few steps back, praying for some glimmer of something in his eyes to tell her this was all a joke. But he just stared at her seriously, and she felt her entire world turn sideways and drop out from underneath her.

"It doesn't mean anything, Maria. I don't love Isabel, not like that. She's like a sister to me." Even as he said it, he knew it wasn't quite true. There was something about Isabel, something that made her different from Max or Tess. Some draw he couldn't quite explain, but it would always be there, this need to protect her first and foremost.

But he wasn't in love with her. He was sure of that. These other feelings were just remnants from another life, and he was not about to let them dictate how he lived this life.

"It means everything," Maria protested. "You're engaged to her. You're supposed to be with her."

"How can you say that?"

"What am I suppose to think?" Maria demanded. "You come and drop this bombshell on me and I'm just supposed to accept it and be okay?"

"Well how do you think I feel?" Michael argued, eyes flashing dangerously. "You think this is hard for you? I've just found out that I had a whole other life, not to mention an entire planet of people who think I can save them. Do you think I'm fine with it? Aren't I entitled to be a little freaked out about everything? Or is this somehow, once again, all about _you_?"

"Look at it from my point of view," Maria answered icily. "You have dreams about Isabel. For a while, you even think she's pregnant with your child. Turns out you were engaged to her. Not to mention that you discover this whole past about yourself and I'm not there for any of it. Why? Was Liz there? Or was it Czechoslovakians only?" Her words were bitter, acidic, and Michael stepped back as though he had been slapped.

"I'm lazy, I don't put effort into our relationship, I lie to you, I exclude you from my life, and I'm secretly in love with Isabel," Michael snarled. "If you really think I am such a lousy boyfriend, why do you want to be with me?"

Maria didn't have an answer, but even if she had, it wouldn't have mattered. Michael turned on his heel and stormed out of the house, wishing he could have stayed to smooth things over with her, wishing they could have spoken like calm and rational adults. All he wanted was Maria to understand and accept all this, but his pride and his temper were in too much control to give in when confronted by her accusations.

The door slammed shut behind him, echoing with finality, and Maria sank into the sofa, burying her head in her hands.

* * *

Liz played with the edges of her journal, staring at the loops and lines in the pages of script she had written. It had been a while since she had pulled her journal out and recorded anything, but she once again felt the urge to put words onto the paper, to explain just how she was feeling at this particular moment in time.

Before she could put her thoughts into words, however, the rap of fingernails on glass caught her attention, and she looked up at see Max standing there, waiting to be let in. She pushed her journal to the side and walked over to him, torn between concern and exasperation. She had not seen him long enough to talk to at all during the day, and she still did not know what the outcomes of his decision to heal Sydney had been. She could tell by the fact that all four aliens were there that he had not been caught, but that didn't mean he had escaped the encounter with no repercussions.

She pulled the window open, and Max stepped into the room. He was looking down at the floor, almost sheepishly, and Liz found her anger growing.

"You avoided me at school today," she accused.

"I didn't…" Max started, and then stopped. It was pointless to try to argue this with her, and he _had_ avoided her at school today. "I'm sorry. Things… happened." He ran a hand through his hair, and slowly met her eyes.

"Max, you just took off last night!" Liz hissed, making sure to keep her voice in case her parents heard. The last thing she needed right now was to have them barge in and start asking questions. "How was I suppose to know if you were okay? You could have been caught by the FBI! Didn't you even think about what would happen?"

"I didn't get caught," Max protested, feeling as though all he had done the past day was defend his hastily made decision. "And I healed Sydney's infection… just not the leukemia."

Liz opened her mouth in surprise, but didn't ask the question that had been lingering at the tip of her tongue. Instead, she asked simply, "Is that why you avoided me yesterday?"

"Not really," Max admitted guiltily. "Look, Liz, I… I learned something last night. Something big." He took a few steps to her bed and sank into it, trying to figure out what exactly he could tell his girlfriend. He needed her to know everything, needed her to understand that he had no idea what to do with any of this information. But could he really tell her that he was married to Tess in a past life? That they were in love?

"What sort of thing?" Liz asked, already fearing the answer.

"Who I am," Max replied. He looked Liz in the eyes again. "Last night, after you called Tess, she came to find me. With Isabel and Michael. But Nasedo found me first, and he offered answers, so I followed him up to the desert. Isabel, Michael, and Tess somehow ended up there also… Nasedo said it was where they were meant to be. I didn't understand it all… But he showed us this… cave. It was hidden, but it was there and I…" He broke off, looking at a loss for words.

"What was in the cave? What happened?" Liz asked worriedly.

And before Max could stop himself, the words came pouring out. Soon he was telling her everything, telling her about every single detail of the first meeting in the cave. Describing the strange metal book and the language and the symbols and everything that Nasedo had said. And the orbs, the connection, how they had gone back the next day to see what would happen, to hear the message. And everything it had said about them, about who they were, where they were from, who their enemies were. How they were related to each other, how an entire planet was relying on them, on _him_, how they were supposed to find this mythical Granolith, how they were supposed to fight and survive and win…

The words came flooding from his mouth, the storing pouring out into the space between the hybrid king and his human girlfriend. He spoke with such speed and such a desperate need to get everything out into the open, it was as though he believed this would somehow lesson the heavy burden resting on his shoulders.

Liz remained silent through his explanation, her facial expression one of incredulous surprise. She said nothing at all, just let him speak, until she thought her brain might overload itself with information and end up just shutting down.

"And then Tess got really upset about something… no idea what… and stormed out of the cave. And Michael was also upset, because it was my mother that we got to see and not his… and he left also, and I didn't…" Max didn't complete the sentence, but finished his explanation with a huff of frustration and fell back against the cushions of the bed. "I can't do this," he said, and it was not a fear or an opinion, but rather a simple statement of fact.

"Max, why didn't you tell me before you listened to the message? Why didn't you tell me what was going on?" Liz asked, sitting next to him on the bed.

"I thought… we just wanted it to be the four of us when we heard the message, because…" Again, Max didn't finish the thought. He couldn't, because he couldn't quite explain why he had been so determined to leave the humans out of it. He had just known, somehow, that it was necessary for the four hybrids to do this together.

"I'm right here, Max, and I'm not going anywhere," Liz murmured, reaching down and playing with a strange of his hair. It was longer than usual, and she wondered if he'd gotten it cut at all recently, or was that another thing that got forgotten in the constant struggle to stay alive and stay safe. "We're in this together."

"We didn't know what it was or what it would tell us, and Nasedo isn't exactly the most trustworthy," Max muttered.

Liz raised an eyebrow and asked pointedly, "Were you trying to protect me or were you trying to protect yourself?"

"I don't know," Max admitted. "God, I've just screwed up so much lately, and I can't believe I'm supposed to lead…" He sat up, propped on his elbows, and gave Liz a serious stare. "Isabel's not pregnant, so that's one problem we don't have to deal with, but what about everything else? And I still… I don't understand why I couldn't heal Sydney. What if next time it is one of you I can't heal?"

Liz flicked a strand of hair out of her eyes and asked, "Do you believe in destiny?"

"Is this about me and Tess? Because I swear I'm not…"

"It isn't about that," Liz interrupted, "although I have to admit I am slightly… worried… by that. I mean, if you loved her so much in a past life, if you two are meant to be together…"

"We're not," Max said emphatically, but Liz still looked unsure.

"I don't like the idea of taking someone who belongs to someone else," Liz said at last.

"What happened to your whole 'we're in this together' idea?" Max snapped, rolling away from her and sitting up fully.

"We're still in this, no matter what our personal relationship is," Liz replied calmly. "But you have a destiny, Max. You heard it from your mother's lips. There is an entire planet out there that is depending on you, and I can't stand in your way."

"Liz, you're not in my way," Max replied, reaching out and taking her hand. "I love Isabel, Michael, and Tess. Isabel, despite her tendency to being overly dramatic. Michael, despite his predisposition towards reckless and stupid behavior. And Tess, despite her mood swings and unpredictability. I love them all _so_ much. And we have to stick together, for our sakes and for the sake of our people, our planet." He gripped her hand more tightly, looking deep into her dark brown eyes. "But my love for them doesn't always make it easy to be their family, and I imagine I'm not the easiest person to get along with either. You're different from all of them. You're… just… I can't explain it, Liz, but most of the time, you're the only thing that makes sense."

Liz felt the burning of tears pooling in her eyes and blinked rapidly to keep them away.

"I need you," Max whispered.

"I'm still here," Liz replied, squeezing his hand in return. Then she looked away from him, her eyes far away, her mind lost in other thoughts. At last, she asked, "So if you don't believe in destiny, do you believe in fate?"

"What's the difference?" Max questioned.

Liz shrugged. "Destiny determines where you have to end up, but Fate is what actually makes it all happen," she replied. She hesitated, then added sheepishly, "We talked about it in a philosophy class I took last year."

Max laughed easily and replied, "And, of course, you remembered it."

Liz smiled as well, and said, "You remember those flashes I sometimes get when we kiss? And the dreams you had about… your other life?"

Max nodded, but added, "I don't really remember the dreams, Liz. Just feelings and emotions left over, and glimpses of colors. Nothing specific."

"But you remember some things, right? Like that you and Tess, in your past life, would go through periods of loving and hating each other? And in the flashes I'd have, I felt like… it felt like you guys were on a rollercoaster ride. Sometimes you were deeply in love, but there were some flashes I saw where you were angry or upset…"

"So?" Max asked, not understanding her point.

"Well… isn't that pretty much how you would describe your relationship with Tess now? Platonic, of course, but still the same emotional up-and-downs?"

Max considered this, getting what she was driving at. "You think that our past relationships affect our present ones?"

"Well, if you are still half the same person you were then, it stands to reason that some of your personality would be the same, wouldn't it?" Liz replied with a shrug. It made sense in her mind, although she wasn't sure if it would make sense to anyone else.

"So does that mean I argued with Michael all the time in my past life as well?" Max quipped.

But Liz took the question seriously and gave it a thoughtful answer. "You said he was your second-in-command, your General? Well… wouldn't it be his job to question all of your decisions just to make sure that you could justify them? Just to make sure that you were doing the right thing?"

"And Isabel?"

"She's your sister in this life and she was your sister in that life. It hasn't changed much." Liz sighed and pulled her knees into her chest. "So… what did you say the name of this thing was? The Granolith?"

"Yeah. Don't know what it is, but we have to protect it," Max grumbled, the enormity of that task sinking in as well. How could they keep something safe from their enemies when they not only had no idea where it was, they didn't even know _what_ it was.

Again, his thoughts wandered to Sydney. The question was still there, still lingering in his mind. Why couldn't he heal her?

"You'll find the answers," Liz said confidently, correctly reading his expression, and Max he could only wish he had her faith.

* * *

"Your shift over now?"

Maria jumped at the sound of the voice, and spun around to glare at Michael. "Don't sneak up on me like that!" she growled. It was the following day, a Friday, but it was also a teacher training day, or an in-school training day, or some other thing that prevented them from having classes. She had been partially relieved that she didn't have to go to school, didn't have to face Isabel, Max, and Tess. She didn't want to think about aliens right now, didn't even want to look at them.

Except for Michael.

The argument had weighed on her mind during the previous night, preventing her from sleeping. And the shift that she had taken at Mr. Parker's request had been a slow one, not many people came for lunch. But instead of feeling more awake, the spare time only made her more tired because she had nothing to do to give her energy and nothing to take her mind of her rather confused life.

Throwing a glare at Michael for good measure, she added, "What are you doing here?"

"Asking you if your shift is over," Michael replied casually, a smirk on his features.

"Yes," Maria replied sullenly. "So what if it is?"

"I just want to talk," Michael said softly, almost diffidently. "Really talk. Every time we've tried, it's ended up as…"

"Arguing?" Maria supplied when Michael didn't finish the sentence. Michael nodded, and she said a bit reluctantly, "Fine. You want to talk. So… talk."

"Not here," Michael objected. He looked around the kitchen, then asked, "Do you have your car with you? I want to show you something."

Maria rolled her eyes and nodded. "Yeah, let me just get my purse." She walked over to her bag, removing the antenna headband as she did so. Dropping her uniform onto the counter, she fished her keys out of her purse and turned back to Michael. "Where to?"

Michael snatched the keys from her. "I'll drive," he decided, gesturing for her to follow him. His abrupt manners grated against Maria's nerves, but she knew he was still upset after their last argument. That he wanted to talk now… that was something, wasn't it? She'd just have to go with the flow and see what happened.

They walked out of the Crashdown into the back alley, and Maria directed them towards her car. The street was almost empty, just the occasional high school student driving around with nothing to do. Once again, the smallness of the town depressed her; there was nothing to do on a school day except go to school, and when that wasn't an option, people just lazed about in boredom.

She really needed to get out of this town.

Michael unlocked the car and slid into the driver's seat. Maria let herself into the passenger side, giving Michael a quick glance as she did so. He seemed tense, and she wondered what they were going to see. What did he want to show her, and why was it so important that he would drag her to it in the middle of the day?

Michael pulled the car onto the street. He drove in silence, not even bothering even to glance over at Maria.

Maria ran her hand over the dashboard, shooting an impatient glare at Michael. He wasn't even looking at her, and his refusal to meet her eyes was more than just a little frustrating. Was he not talking to her because he was still angry? Was this just going to turn into another argument?

"I wish I could have been there when you discovered everything," Maria said quietly. "I mean… I don't even know… how did you discover everything?"

"Long story," Michael replied. "Nasedo lead us to this cave that had orbs that held a message…" He waved his hand tiredly. "It was complicated."

"Okay," Maria said quietly. She waited, hoping Michael would say something, but when he didn't, she all but exploded, "Are you even going to talk to me?"

"I told you, we're going somewhere special," Michael answered.

"Where?"

"You'll see," Michael said evasively, and there was something in his tone that caused her to give him a sharp stare, wondering… She looked into Michael's eyes, studying them carefully. They were exactly how she remembered them, except… a little foreign, a little… colder? Or… more determined? Something was just… _wrong_.

She didn't have to ask the question because she already knew the answer, but she wanted to hear him say it, wanted to hear the words from this man's mouth.

"You're not really Michael, are you?"

The man in the driver's seat looked at her, and then he was abruptly someone else. His hair changed color and receded slightly, becoming shorter. His nose stretched, his eyes widened, his skin paled, his mouth twisted into a smile.

And instead of Michael, she found herself looking at Sean.

"No," the shape-shifter replied. "No, I'm not really Michael."

* * *

Next Chapter: Disappearing Act

Due: Sun 9/9


	91. Disappearing Act

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Sorry this update is a week later than it was supposed to be. Real life caught up with me again. Also, this has a very bittersweet Alex/Isabel scene in it, but I wanted to once again reassure everyone that this is CC and not to give up hope.

* * *

Chapter Ninety: Disappearing Act

Maria reached discreetly for her bag, hoping she'd be able to pull out her cell phone without the shape-shifter noticing. Keeping her eyes fixed determinedly on the road ahead, she said firmly, "You know, the rest of them will never trust you when they find out you've kidnapped me."

Nasedo gave her a quick glance and a slight smirk. "But they're not going to find that out," he replied calmly, unperturbed by her threat.

Maria felt her heart plummet at those words. "Are you… are you going to kill me?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Nasedo snapped derisively. "If I wanted to kill you, I'd have done it during one of the many times the two of us were alone in the past several months."

Maria slid her hand onto her phone and gave Nasedo a piercing look. It was strange, seeing this man she could never trust wearing the face of the father she'd come to care about. Although she knew that it had always been Nasedo and never the real Sean, she couldn't help but feel an instinctual love for the man wearing that face.

"Why?" she asked, flipping the top of her phone open and praying that Nasedo didn't see her hands moving around in her bag. "Why did you pretend to be Sean? Why did you do all those things? Help me with everything, with getting close to my mother again. Why?"

"I needed you to trust me. You're a means to an end, Maria. Nothing more," Nasedo said dismissively. He gave her a curious look, but then switched his eyes back to the road. "Were you hoping for a different answer?"

"They'll never trust you," Maria spat, her anger flaring. "Never."

"They will," Nasedo countered. "You'll see."

Then he waved one hand at her, and his fingers glowed red for a moment. Maria started, then felt the phone in her hands become soft. She pulled it out of her bag and stared at it, watching as the metal melted into her palm. Her phone was officially no longer usable.

"What did you…?"

"You won't be calling anyone," Nasedo said pointedly. "And nobody saw you leave. Nobody saw you leave with _me_."

The implications of his words sunk in with unerring finality and Maria was left to contemplate the fact that she was truly alone.

* * *

Alex glanced around the Crashdown, waiting for Isabel. She'd called him only an hour before and asked if she could meet with him, and they'd agreed on the time and location. He had hoped that Maria or Liz might be working today, but both of them appeared to be gone. Liz was, no doubt, with Max, talking over whatever latest alien problem was bothering him. And Maria might be with Michael, trying to resolve their differences.

It was strange, he reflected, how no matter how hard they tried to keep their social lives separate from this alien madness, they always ended up getting sucked back into the same mess.

He wondered how Isabel was doing. It must be difficult for her, discovering that she could be pregnant with Michael's child. He didn't know how supportive Max and Michael were being, but he could tell that she still needed someone to lean on. And he was happy to be that someone.

Even though he'd broken up with her, even though he was the one who walked away. Fate just kept taking him back to her door.

"Alex?"

Isabel's voice brought him out of his reveries, and he watched as she slipped into the seat across from him, a grateful smile on her face.

"Hey," Alex greeted her.

"Thanks for coming," Isabel replied. She pressed her hands flat on the table, as though trying to push through the wood. It was a nervous habit she and the other aliens… hybrids… shared.

"Is everything alright? With… you know…" Alex gestured towards her stomach, and Isabel nodded.

"I'm not… it was a false alarm," Isabel explained. "Apparently, we can only get… um… you know… the human way." She flushed bright red as she said the words, and averted her eyes from Alex's face.

"That's great news," Alex said quickly, searching Isabel's face for any sign of disappointment. He knew he was being ridiculous, that Isabel most certainly did not want to be with Michael. But still, he had to make sure that she was pleased she wasn't carrying the other alien's baby. For his own piece of mind, he had to know that Michael wasn't a rival.

A bright smile lit of Isabel's face and she nodded, assuaging any of Alex's doubts. "I know," she answered, and the relief was evident in her voice. "It is good news."

Isabel reached out, tentatively at first, and took Alex's hand in her own. As she did so, she remembered the argument she and Michael had had in the hallway of school only a few days ago, remembered how when she had touched his arm, she'd felt a burst of energy crawling through her skin. She didn't feel that now, didn't feel it at all. Alex's skin was cool to the touch.

It was a nice feeling, being able to hold his hand without any alien interference. Instead of having to think about the past and the future and their distant, unknown enemies, she could be grounded in the here and the now of this conversation.

"I just wanted to say thank you for what you said to me before," Isabel murmured. "For everything you said… It was good to know that there was someone there for me throughout all this craziness."

"I know it wasn't easy for you," Alex agreed. "I wanted to help. I want you to know that you can count on me."

"I know…" Isabel took a deep breath and stared straight into Alex's eyes before continuing, "which is why it is hard for me to say this to you."

Alex swallowed nervously, knowing what was coming next. "Isabel," he said quickly, hoping to forestall the inevitable, "I already broke up with you. We don't need to…"

"You didn't mean it," Isabel interrupted. She gave Alex a knowing smile. "If you meant it, you wouldn't have come back to me and pledged your support the moment I was in trouble. We keep… no matter how much the two of us try to stay apart, it just doesn't really work, does it?"

There was no arrogance in her words, just the simple truth of a simple statement. He didn't mean what he had said and they did keep coming back to each other.

"And now you're picking Sara, Jessica, and Trudy over me?" Alex questioned, although he didn't expect an answer.

"No," Isabel replied firmly. "I'm picking Tess over you." Tears started to pool in her eyes, and Alex had to look away. He didn't want to know how hard this was for her because it was tearing him up inside too.

"You shouldn't have to pick," Alex managed to say, his voice vehement. "Tess shouldn't ask you to pick between us."

"I know," Isabel gave an ironic laugh, "but Tess has never been one to do what everyone else thinks is right." She let go of Alex's hand and he pulled it away from her, leaning back in the seat. "In the end, Alex, this isn't really about you or Tess. This is about me and about what I need to do for myself."

"And you need to be friends with Tess?"

Isabel nodded slowly. "I care about you Alex, I really do. And maybe… maybe someday soon we can be together again, but I… Tess is my family. She's a family that I haven't been close to for too many years, and now that I have a chance to be something more than just an estranged, one-time friend with her…"

Alex drew a breath. "If you didn't feel that way, if you were willing to just give up on being friends with Tess, you wouldn't be Isabel. You wouldn't be the person that I… that I love." It was the hardest part of all of this to admit; but if she had chosen a boy she'd only really been friends with for a few months over a girl who was supposed to be her family, no matter how difficult and complicated that girl was, she wouldn't be the Isabel he had fallen in love with, the Isabel he wanted to be with.

Either way, he'd lost her already.

Isabel stood up and leaned over to Alex, her lips brushing against his own as she whispered, "I love you." Then she turned and walked out of the diner, and didn't look back.

* * *

"Where are we going?" Maria asked as her car roared along the highway. She was terrified, but since Nasedo hadn't tried to kill her yet, she could only hope that meant that she was going to survive this encounter.

"I have some unfinished business to take care of, and you're going to help me do it," Nasedo replied.

"I'm not going to kill anyone for you," Maria said quickly, half-joking.

But Nasedo gave her a completely serious look and said, "That's alright, Maria. I can do my own killing."

Maria turned away from him and stared out at the passing landscape in silence, now even more frightened by this entire experience. If she thought she could, she'd have just jumped out of the car, but who knew what powers this shape-shifter had. She didn't want to risk making him upset with a bid for freedom until she was absolutely certain it would work.

As she was thinking over this, she noticed that the car was slowing down. Nasedo was switching lanes, pulling over to the side of the road.

"What are you doing?"

"Leaving footprints in the mud," Nasedo answered, but his cryptic comment meant nothing to Maria.

In silence, Nasedo parked the car. He took of his seatbelt and opened his door, his eyes moving quickly to Maria in a warning glare. As he slammed the door shut, he waved his hand, and the locks sprung into place. He turned away and walked to the side of the road.

Maria tried frantically to open to the door, but Nasedo had ensured that the locks would not reopen except by alien methods, effectively trapping her in the car. Realizing that escape would not come that way, she began to look around the car for anything that could be used as a weapon. She kept a few pencils in the glove compartment, a water bottle on the floor in the back seat, scraps of paper to write notes on, and a granola bar shoved into the side pockets. Nothing that could really help her.

Before she could think any further on this subject, however, her attention was drawn to the side of the road. Nasedo had leaned down next to a large rock and pressed his hand into it, causing the rock to explode into tiny fragments that flew through the air like tiny bullets. None of them hit Nasedo or the car, but instead fell with a harmless clatter to the cement of the road.

When Nasedo walked away from the rock, Maria could see that half of it was blown away.

And the other half was marked with a glowing silver handprint.

Nasedo got into the car and started driving again. Maria stared at him as though he had gone mad, then demanded furiously, "Do you _want_ the FBI to find us?"

"Yes," Nasedo said simply, not even bothering to look at her. "That's _exactly_ what I want."

* * *

Tess slammed the door to her room shut and stormed across to her bed. Throwing herself onto the mattress, she stared blankly around her, watching the rays of light from the open window dance across the far wall.

She was a Queen. Laughter, bubbling and hot and acidic, threatened to escape from her closed lips. She bit her tongue to remain quiet, listening instead to the rise and fall of her own angry breaths.

Max was her husband, Isabel her sister-in-law. Michael was betrothed to her sister-in-law. They were her family. She's always known they were family, she just didn't know how. Now that the answers were right in front of her, she wanted nothing more than to slide back into the bliss of ignorance.

The revelation of their past lives and their duty to their people had happened the day before, but even though she had now had time to come to terms with what it all meant, she still wasn't able to look past the very first bit of information they had learned.

She was a Queen. Max's _wife_.

The soft tap of fingernails on glass caused her to look towards the window, and she almost groaned. Part of her had to respect Max's ability to show up just when she least wanted to see him, but that part was overwhelmed by the fury that was still coursing through her veins.

She gestured for him to come in, then propped herself up on her elbows and demanded bitterly, "What do you want?"

"Just to talk," Max replied quickly, holding out both his hands as a symbol of peace and surrender. "You're obviously upset, and I want to know why."

"Why?" Tess mimicked. "You want to know _why_?"

For months, the worst parts of Tess had been pretty well controlled by her softer side. It had been a long time since the full crescendo of an angry Tess had come crashing down on Max, and he had forgotten just how viciously cruel she could be. He was at a loss for how to proceed because he had no idea why she was upset.

"Tess, I…"

"Perhaps you should go speak to Liz," Tess continued smoothly, her voice dropping to a low growl. "She seems to have all your answers."

"Is this about Liz?" Max asked, completely befuddled. He wracked his brain, trying to remember is there was anything he could have said or done that would have turned Tess against Liz. But other than the usual arguments, he couldn't come up with any reason that Tess would be this upset.

He sat down on the chair across from Tess.

"She is, after all, the love of your life, isn't she?" Tess said sweetly, her eyes ice cold and rock hard. "Your precious _soul mate_."

"Look, we've had conversations about Liz before, and I'm not going to apologize for dating her…" He wanted to say more, but there was nothing left to say, and he couldn't keep having this argument with Tess. Sooner or later she would have to accept that the past was over and done with, and now all they had to do was move forward towards the future.

"I thought, maybe, we weren't really a family," Tess interrupted. She wasn't looking at Max anymore, but instead staring beyond him to the window. There was nothing in her voice to give any indication of what she was trying to say, of whether she was angry or upset or hopeful. It was devoid of all emotion, like the blank expression on her face.

"_What_?" Max wondered inwardly how he could have forgotten what Tess was like. How had he fooled himself into thinking that they were getting anywhere in their friendship? For months, she had been… well, if not pleasant, then at least tolerable. How could he have not remembered this side of her? How could he no longer know how to respond?

"I know you and Isabel were siblings. That much was obvious. But I also knew that Michael and I were not your siblings. And we were not each other's siblings. So I thought…" Tess looked at Max again and shook her head. "Maybe we weren't really family. Just survivors of some horrible disaster on our home planet. Sent here by our parents, but we weren't… we didn't mean anything to each other. And the only reason we meant anything now was because we were all we had."

"But we are a family, Tess. You heard… my mother…" Max chewed his lip as he said the last words. It was hard to even think them, hard to imagine that he had another mother somewhere up in that vast expanse of space.

"You always said we were family," Max argued, but Tess just chuckled grimly.

"_You_ always said we were family, Max, and I just went along with it." She sat fully up in bed, swinging her legs over the side so that she was facing Max. "Anyway, family has many different definitions. We could be a family without being blood or law related. We could be a family just because we were the only aliens around and we needed to rely on each other for survival. But that didn't make us family the way you and Isabel are."

Max didn't say anything. Tess had stopped sounding so angry, and now she just seemed sad. He wasn't sure which one was better, or how soon it would be before Tess lost control again and started yelling at him. He chanced a glance to the door of her room and wondered if Valenti or Kyle were home. If so, he could at least rest assured that Tess would not do anything to attract their attention while Max was still in the room.

"And then I find out that we are family. And you left me. You walked away."

Max groaned inwardly. He did not want to have a conversation with Tess about who stopped being friends with whom first. They had spoken about this so many times it felt like they had beaten the subject to death. He didn't even understand _why_ it mattered so much because they had fallen apart so long ago and shouldn't they be focusing on moving forward instead of dwelling on the past?

"Tess, I don't think that this is really the time to be having discussions about friendship," Max started, but Tess interrupted him with an angry huff.

"This isn't about that, Max." She stood up suddenly. "We were supposed to come out of the pods together, weren't we? I mean, that is the only way it would make sense. We were all supposed to… _hatch_… at the same time." She walked over to the door, pulling it open and glancing into the hallway. For a moment, she contemplated something in the hall, and Max craned his neck to see that she was staring at the closed door to Kyle's bedroom.

"Is Kyle home?"

Tess nodded, then shut the door and turned back to Max. "He and Trudy are… _hanging out_." The slight inflection of disbelief in her voice made it quite clear that she doubted that they were truly just hanging out. "I thought I heard him move around. We need to be quieter."

"How can you hear anything? I don't," Max said, confused.

Tess rolled her eyes. "I'm used to this house, I can hear things in it. The way you can hear things in your house, like when your parents are walking around…" She didn't finish the sentence, but Max knew what she meant to say.

… _so that you can hide whatever you are doing and lie to them about it._

"You should go," Tess added.

"I want to finish this conversation," Max argued because he knew if he walked away now, he would never be able to understand what was actually bothering Tess, and they would end up being angry at each other for much longer than necessary.

"Ten minutes, Max," Tess said softly. "That's how long I bet it took me to break out of the pod after you had gone. Ten minutes."

"Uh… I guess…" Max shrugged. He hadn't really thought about it, but it made sense. They all must have been programmed to hatch at the same time, and even the crash wouldn't have completely changed that. After all, they had emerged from their pods at almost the same time, hadn't they?

"You healed Liz without a second thought," Tess said softly, but her voice was filled again with the same steely anger. "You rushed off to make deals with a shape-shifter you _knew_ we couldn't trust in order to save Isabel from her dreams. You healed Sydney and risked exposing all of us and the _only_ person you told was Liz. Then you walked off into the night with a shape-shifter who, yet again, you knew we couldn't trust."

Max felt the blush creep into his face as Tess; voice dropped lower and lower. Her eyes, once again positively glacial, were piercing through his façade of detached curiosity and he couldn't help but feel the guilt she was managing to dredge up.

But it was her next words, just a single question, that took his breath away and left him gaping at her in stunned silence.

"What the hell was so damn important that you couldn't wait in the cave a whole _ten minutes_ for your _wife_?"

He had thought she was upset because of the numerous times he'd put them all in danger. But it wasn't that, and in retrospect, he wondered how he could ever have been so blind to think that it was only about their safety? How could he have never asked himself the question that she apparently had tried to answer for the past ten years?

Why hadn't they waited for her?

Had they not seen her? Had they forgotten? Did they just not care? He didn't remember his hatching well enough to know the answer to that, but he couldn't think up one that made sense. He must have seen her in the pod, it was right next to his own. He couldn't have forgotten, and why would he have not cared about her?

There wasn't really any answer to give, and when he climbed out of her window a few minutes later, angry at himself and the entire world for doing this to them all.

* * *

Nasedo reached into his own pocket with one hand, keeping his other hand tightly on the steering wheel. He pulled out a cell phone and stared at it for a moment, thinking. Then he looked at Maria and slowly his features began to change. He was shrinking, becoming thinner, and his hair had turned a light blonde. A moment later, and Maria found herself staring at an exact replica of herself.

"What the hell…?" she breathed.

Nasedo, now looking like Maria, lifted the cell phone and quickly dialed a number. Still watching Maria, he waited until he heard the voice at the other end of the line.

"Hello?"

Pressing his hand tightly around the phone, the shape-shifter concentrated his gifts on making the phone connection appear static, until they could barely hear the caller at the other end. Then Nasedo-Maria started talking.

"Michael…? Please… help…"

"Maria? Where are you? I can't hear anything, the line is static. Where are you calling from?" The panic in his voice was obvious, and Nasedo-Maria smiled, pleased.

"Pay phone… Carnival around 380 West… have me… escaped… oh, God, please Michael…"

"Maria, hold on, okay? Just tell me where you are. We're coming…"

The shape-shifter smirked as Michael's frantic cries came echoing through the phone line. Then he clicked the phone shut, ending the call. He put the cell phone back in his pocket and turned his attention back to the road, shifting back into Sean's form.

"Why did you do that?" Maria asked, fear gripping her. Michael was going to walk right into a trap, and there was nothing she could do to warn him.

"I told you," Nasedo replied calmly, "I have some unfinished business to take care of. And I need your four alien friends to do it."

Then he coldly, callously, waved his hand out of his partially open window at a nearby car which exploded in a fiery flash of light and smoke. Maria started, stifling back a scream as she jumped in her seat. Twisting her neck, she glanced back to see the wreckage of the destroyed car disappear into the distance as Nasedo sped on.

"It was time to leave another footprint," Nasedo said quietly.

* * *

Liz opened the door to find a confused and upset looking Max standing there, twisting his coat in his hands. She stepped aside and gestured for him to enter the house.

"My parents are gone," Liz said, indicating to him that they could speak freely about whatever was bothering him, in case it was something alien.

Max nodded, but didn't say anything. Finally, he muttered, "I don't really want to talk. Can we just… sit? Watch some TV, maybe?"

"Sure," Liz said, surprised, but willing to go with the flow of things until she knew exactly what had happened to her boyfriend. She simply lead him to the sofa and sat down next to him, feeling the heavy pressure of his weight as he leaned against her.

"I think I've screwed up," Max said softly. "And I don't know how to fix it."

"What's wrong?" Liz asked, now fearing the worst. Had someone died? Had they been exposed? But no, if it was either of those, Max would not be here, lying on her sofa. He would be up and about, trying to fix the problem, even if he didn't know how.

But Max didn't answer. He couldn't answer, because he didn't even know how to phrase the problem. Everything seemed wrong right now; the idea that he was a king, the fact that Tess had been abandoned, the way Michael had reacted to once again not getting a parent, that he hadn't been able to heal Sydney.

In the end, it all came back to that failure to heal the little girl. If he couldn't do that one thing, how was he supposed to do anything else?

* * *

"Sheriff?"

Deputy Fisher walked into Valenti's office without even bothering to knock. Valenti looked up, annoyed, but at the serious expression on his deputy's face, the reprimand died on his lips.

"Yes, Deputy?"

"There's been a report of an accident on 280 West. A 1994 Buick apparently went up in flames. It looks serious. A couple of eye witnesses said they saw another car drive by just as the Buick exploded, so it might be a hit and run."

Valenti stood instantly. "Did the eyewitness get the plate of the other car?"

Deputy Fisher nodded hesitantly, then said, "They did, Sir. I looked it up. It's… it's registered to Maria DeLuca."

* * *

Next Chapter: Follow the Leader

Due: Sun 9/23


	92. Follow the Leader

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: As I mentioned in some earlier AN on an earlier chapter, I'm giving Nasedo "gifts" other than those he had on the show. So don't be surprised if he uses a gift in this chapter that we haven't seen him use before. I've also decided that, within the next few chapters, I will reveal all of the abilities that Nasedo has, so that should clear up confusion for what he can and can't do.

* * *

Chapter Ninety-One: Follow the Leader

"They have Maria!"

Michael burst into the room, slamming the door back on his hinges as he made a bee-line straight for Max. Liz and Max both looked up quickly, identical looks of confusion on their faces. Whatever had happened, it had been enough to cause Michael to lose all sense of subtlety or camouflage as he had just charged into the Parkers' home and started yelling without waiting to see if anyone else was home.

Which made it fortunate that Liz and Max were still the only two people there.

"What do you mean? Who has Maria?" Liz asked, already standing. Her mind was filled with images, her best friend in danger, being hauled off by the FBI or enemy aliens.

"I don't know. She called me from a pay phone. She said she was at some carnival somewhere… there was a lot of static, I couldn't hear well enough," Michael explained, rushing his words together. "On 380 West, I think."

"Did she say who had her?" Max asked, reaching automatically for his cell phone.

At the same time, Liz asked, "Did you try calling her back? Calling her cell phone?"

Michael answered Max's question first, shaking his head. "She didn't say anything else, just that she needed help. She sounded terrified. And then the line went dead." Glancing at Liz, he added, "I did call her cell phone, but no answer. It was strange… it gave this weird chiming ring, not like the usual one."

"Like her phone had been disconnected?" Liz guessed. "Or… destroyed?"

"A carnival on 380 West?" Max muttered as he punched digits into his phone. "She could be anywhere." He held the phone up to his ear and glanced over at Liz. "When will your parents be home?"

"Not for a few hours," Liz replied.

"Isabel?" Max said into the phone. "Can you come to Liz's? It's an emergency… And can you call Tess also? And Alex? They should both be here… Thanks." Fortunately, Isabel had asked no questions, but promised to come right away. And Max knew that, no matter how upset Tess was, she would be here for this. All of them had quite a bit of practice putting their own feelings aside to face the demands of an emergency.

"We need to find her," Liz was mumbling, looking scared.

"We will," Max assured her, and only hoped he could keep that promise. "Okay, Liz, we need to use a computer. I need to know where the nearest carnivals on 380 West are."

* * *

Sheriff Valenti had seen and heard of a lot of things in his years as Sheriff. But this… this was beyond anything he could have ever dreamed of. Maria DeLuca, a suspect in a hit and run? The girl was occasionally scatter-brained, but she was not a criminal. 

He let his hand rest on the gun currently resting in its holder at his waist and walked briskly towards his car, issuing orders to Deputy Fisher at the same time. "Put a few boys on the usual rounds to make sure things run smoothly in my absence. Then put out an APB for Maria's car. Get on the phone to the neighboring cities if you have to, I want every officer from here to Santa Fe on this. I'm going to the crime scene. Check in with me when you've finished this, I might need you to come down also."

"Right away, sir," Fisher replied. He hurried away to follow his boss' bidding, and Valenti watched him go, a frown falling onto his features. He could sense the importance of whatever was happening. Somehow, this incident would provide him with answers… he just wasn't sure if they were answers he was going to like.

He slid into the driver's seat and turned the keys in the ignition. As the car jumped to life, he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the another man, one he did not recognize, getting into a black Sedan across the street.

The Sedan pulled into the street and started to drive away. Valenti felt strangely tempted to follow the other car, but his duty demanded that he report immediately to the site of the accident. Besides, he could hardly explain why this other car disturbed him so much. It was, after all, just a car…

He started to drive. Ahead of him, the back Sedan turned right and, on a whim, Valenti turned right as well, away from the streets that would lead him to 380 West. He followed the car until it stopped across the street from the entrance to the Parker's house.

He parked his car as well, a ways down the street to avoid being seen. Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, he took in his surroundings. There were three cars parked in front of Liz's house. Either she was having friends over, and they were gathering to talk about something else. Did they know about the accident? Had Maria told them? Was Maria there right now?

Another car drove down the street and parked outside of Liz's house. As soon as the car had stopped moving, the passenger side's door flew open and Isabel jumped out. Even from a distance, Valenti could tell she was upset and worried.

Alex got out of the driver's seat and said something to Isabel. She shook her head and the two of them hurried up the walkway towards the door of Liz's house. Before the reached the door, however, it swung open, and Valenti caught sight of Michael's fearful face. Then Isabel and Alex entered the house and the door closed behind them.

What was going on?

He reached for his phone and called Fisher. The Deputy picked up on the second ring.

"Fisher, there's been a change in plans. I need to follow up on a different lead. I want you to go the accident site for me. I'll call with further instructions later." He paused, then added, "Take Carter with you and leave Johnson in charge of sending out the APB and contacting authorities in other cities."

"Yes, sir," Fisher replied and hung up.

Valenti watched the Parkers' house, waiting. Something was going to happen, something that would blow all his suspicions wide and confirm that he was right about this, that it was more than just a simple hit and run.

He did not have long to wait. A few minutes later, another car turned down the block and parked in front of Liz's house. A car he recognized way to well, having bought it himself after much badgering from his children.

And he watched, eyes widening with shock and disbelief, heart plummeting deep into his stomach, as Tess got out of the car and walked towards Liz's house.

He didn't want to believe it, but what choice did he have. The evidence was right there, staring him straight in the face. How long had it been there? How many clues had he missed? How many times had he turned away, not wanting to see the truth?

_Tess_ was involved in all this.

* * *

"This is crazy," Agent Farmer said, leaning back in his seat and staring at the house across from them. "They're just a bunch of kids getting together for a party or something. What makes Pierce think they're going to do anything?" 

Agent Willis sighed. Farmer was new, a last-minute addition to their team. He hadn't been with them through the entire investigation, and therefore came to their program with a good amount of skepticism. He was diligent and hard-working and he followed orders, no matter how strange they may seem to him. It was for those reasons that Pierce had procured him, and for those reasons that they had overlooked in disbelief.

"We have orders, Farmer. You want to break them?"

"Of course not," Farmer replied smoothly. "I'm sure Pierce knows what he's doing. I just don't get why a bunch of kids are so important."

Willis twisted around in his seat and stared behind them. "I think that car that drove past a moment ago was Sheriff Valenti's. It's still parked there."

"Is he going to be a problem?" Farmer asked, concerned. As much as he did not believe in extraterrestrials, he also knew that his own beliefs did not matter as much as his actions. It was his job to complete the mission assigned to him, not to question it. The few worries he brought up about their task were only meant as distractions while they waited outside this teenager's home. No matter his feelings, he would do what he was asked.

It made him the exact type of FBI agent that Pierce wanted.

"No," Willis replied firmly. "Valenti's a fool. He sees all the obvious signs and still doesn't follow the clues." He rolled his eyes. He'd never understood why Topolski had wanted to bring Valenti into the fold. He hadn't seen particularly reliable. And, of course, Topolski herself hadn't been reliable in the end.

But, when he had mentioned this to Pierce, it had only served to intrigue the alien-hunter even more. Instead of dismissing Valenti as useless, he had decided that the Sheriff needed closer watching. And since he was calling all the shots, the Sheriff had been placed on closer surveillance. Willis wasn't sure yet whether or not that extra supervision had yielded any clues, and he hadn't really bothered asking.

"Then why isn't he driving out to the accident? Why is he still here, watching and waiting?" Farmer countered. If Valenti was really oblivious, he wouldn't expect this group of teenagers to be involved, would he?

Willis didn't answer. He just shrugged and leaned back in his seat. "He's not our problem," he replied finally, and Farmer accepted this quietly.

"Something's happening," Farmer said abruptly, leaning forward and watching. Two teenage boys were hurrying out of the house. It took a moment for him to recognize them; he was knew enough that he did not know all the players by sight. But when he did manage to put the faces with names, he knew that something was going on, because Max Evans and Michael Guerin had just left the house, looking upset.

They were followed a moment later by Liz Parker, Isabel Evans, Tess Harding, and another boy.

"Who's that?" Farmer asked, pointing at the last boy.

"Alex Whitman," Willis replied quickly. "A friend of the Parker girl's. We didn't think he was important…" He trialed off. They also hadn't thought that Maria DeLuca was privy to the secret, but it was her car that was seen leaving the hit-and-run, her car that had been present when the silver handprint had been burned onto the partially destroyed rock. This was getting more complicated as they spoke.

They observed with interest as Max and Michael climbed into one of the cars. The Liz and Tess followed, getting into the back seat. Alex and Isabel got into the car they had arrived in, and then the two cars swerved out into the street and drove away.

Willis turned their own car on, and followed the teenagers.

Behind them, Valenti pulled out into the street, following the black Sedan.

* * *

Nasedo parked the car in the parking lot and glanced over towards the carnival. People were swarming in and out of the lot, milling about as they headed towards the rides, games, and concession stands. Mothers with their little children, who squealed in delight at the sight of the huge bags of cotton candy and ropes of licorice; college-aged students, blowing off steam between classes, clumped together near the scarier rides; older men and women watched with amusement as the younger generations hurried by, intent of squeezing every single drop of fun out of their free day. 

"Come on, Maria," he said, unlocking the car doors and gesturing for her to get out.

"What are we doing here?" Maria asked. She swallowed back her fear and looked around. Maybe, if they were going inside the carnival, she'd be able to break free and hide in the chaos. Maybe this would her chance to escape.

"The FBI are coming," Nasedo said. "The Special Unit will find us. More importantly, they'll find _you_."

"And then what?" Maria asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking. She climbed out of the car as Nasedo stepped closer to her and seized her arm.

"Nothing is going to happen to you," Nasedo promised, and Maria wasn't sure if she felt reassured or not. After all, she couldn't really trust him, but why would he lie to her about that? If he meant her harm, why not just admit it? It wasn't like there was anything she could do at the moment.

"If the FBI get me…"

Nasedo interrupted her, "Your friends are going to learn a little lesson about the importance of knowing how to use their gifts. About the importance of trusting me. And, as an added bonus, Pierce is going to learn a little lesson about what happens when you make an enemy out of the Royal Four… and me."

"If you hurt Michael or any of them, I will kill you," Maria said with as much venom as she could muster. It was rather unlikely she would actually kill anyone, but she made the threat anyway, desperately wanting to protect the others.

But Nasedo just smiled blithely. "If I wanted to hurt them, I'd have done it already," he said. Pulling her behind him, he strode briskly towards the carnival. "Come on, Maria. It's time."

* * *

"Why would the FBI take her? Or was it someone else?" Alex asked. He had repeated the question over and over in the short time they had been driving. He did not like the silence, he did not like all the thoughts that raced through his mind when there was nothing to distract him. He knew his constant questioning was annoying Isabel, but he couldn't help it. 

Maria had to be okay. She just had to be.

Isabel didn't answer. She kept her eyes glued on the car ahead of her, the car that Max was driving. They had located the carnival on the internet, and now they could only pray that Maria would still be there when they arrived. Max had wanted Liz and Alex to stay behind in case Maria came back to Roswell, but Liz had refused in no uncertain terms, and Alex had echoed her sentiment. If Maria was in danger, they were not going to do nothing and let the others rescue her. There hadn't been enough time to argue about it, not with Maria possibly still in the clutches of whoever had kidnapped her, and so the two humans had joined the race to save their friend.

It reminded her of the last time something like this had happened, when it had been Michael who had basically abducted Maria, dragging her to Texas. Then, Liz, Alex, and Isabel had all stayed behind at Max's request. Then, they hadn't argued with his authority.

Things were changing.

And yet…

Max had taken control over the entire situation the moment Michael brought the news to him. He was the one who had issued the orders and determined their next actions. Somehow, despite the fact that he couldn't remember being a king, the knowledge that in a past life he had been a ruler was now giving him the confidence to act like one. She hoped his newly discovered assurance would help Maria.

But she couldn't help but remember how lost and confused he had been right after receiving the information from their mother, and she wondered just how long Max's self-assuredness would last before he reverted into the self-doubting person he had been before all this started.

"We'll find her in time, won't we? I mean… nothing's happened to Maria yet," Alex rambled, now staring out the window. "She'll be fine. She'll be fine." He lapsed into silence, repeating the refrain over and over in his head, hoping that it was actually true.

* * *

The tension in the air was palpable. From the moment Tess had first walked into her house, Liz had known that whatever Max had been so upset about before, it was related to Tess. The friction between the two, combined with Michael's obvious fear and her own terror left the silence filled with charged energy. 

The reality of the situation settled in her stomach, a hard ball of guilt and anger. What she had always dreaded-that one of her friends would be hurt because she had pulled them into this mess-was now coming true. If she had never told Maria the secret…

But it was too late to go back and change what had happened. What was done, was done. The only way to go was forward, towards the next uncertain step.

"We don't know who has here," Michael said at last, breaking the silence. "The FBI, enemy aliens, Nasedo… It could be anyone." He was speaking more to himself than to any of them.

But Max answered anyway. "It doesn't matter. Whoever has her, they're going to regret it." He glanced in the rearview mirror, making sure that Isabel and Alex were still in sight. They needed to stick together, all six of them. He wasn't going to let anyone else get hurt.

"How did they even take her? Wouldn't her mother have noticed?" Tess asked, glancing over at Liz. "If Maria was home today, that is…"

"She was working at the Crashdown this afternoon, I think," Liz replied, scouring her memory for any clues. "If she hadn't shown up, someone would have called my dad and he would have called me. So I guess we can assume that she was at her shift."

"But anyone could have abducted her on her way home," Michael cut in. He shook his head, remembering his last argument with her, remembering how they had never had the chance to smooth over their differences and work through all the problems. Maybe, if they had, she wouldn't have been leaving the Crashdown by herself. Maybe he would have joined her after her shift. Maybe…

His emotions must have shown on his face, because Max said to him gently, "It wasn't your fault." His voice was so low that only Michael could hear him. "And she's going to be fine."

Michael looked out his window again. He could only pray that Max was right.

* * *

"Please, let me go. You can't win this. They're not going to trust you, no matter what," Maria begged. She'd tried threatening, she'd tried acting brave, she'd tried nonchalance. It seemed that pleading was the only path left to her, but even that was getting her nowhere. 

"How many times do I have to tell you? I will win," Nasedo spat angrily. His expression softened slightly, however, as Maria tried to recoil away from him. He still had a firm grip on her arm and he had informed her that if she tried to escape he would not hesitate to use his powers to stop her. He was not worried about exposure right now.

A little girl bumped into Maria's leg. She looked to be about five and was clutching a over-sized teddy bear in her hands. She looked up at Maria, a bright smile on her face, and waved cheerfully, the way children do before they learn not to speak to strangers.

Nasedo gave the girl a look of utter disdain and dragged Maria away.

"I'm sorry," Nasedo said as he pushed her into a darkened corner created by the intersection of two wooden barriers. Behind them, a roller coaster raced by, creaking on wood and metal supports. "But you have to understand… this really is for the best."

He pressed his hands to either side of her head. She started to struggle, but then fell still, feeling a burning sensation slicing through her mind. The pain was unbearable, but it was over almost as soon as it had started, and she gasped and leaned over, clutching the wooden barrier to stay standing. The word was spinning and she felt nauseous, like her entire stomach had twisted and turned over completely…

Nasedo stared at her for a moment in concern. He tried to push away the emotion, but he couldn't. He was worried about her. She had reacted more violently than he had expected.

Humans were weak, useless. He had not respect for their petty ways or their incredibly wasteful use of everything, including their own brains. Some of them, like the Sheriff, had a few good traits. He was oblivious enough to everything, and he cared enough about Tess, that he had done his part in keeping the Queen safe during the past years. The Evans parents, too, had been useful to have around. But others, like the Parkers, or several of the deputies in the Sheriff's office, or a few teachers at the school, were just plain stupid. And stupidity could lead people towards petty grievances, greed, and malicious actions.

Pierce was living proof of that.

But Maria DeLuca was different. He had invested so much time in acting like her father, in gaining her trust. Somewhere along the way, he'd actually started to care about her.

Not that he would ever admit it to anyone.

The irony of the situation was not lost on him.

But it was why he had chosen her and not Liz Parker for this little trip. Originally, his idea had been to take the brunette waitress and use her as bait. However, that would put Liz in danger. Maria, the FBI did not want, but Liz… Pierce would love to get his hands on her, to dissect her and see if Max's healing had changed her at all.

Max would be devastated if anything happened to Liz, but that would have been better for the shape-shifter. The hybrid king would have been driven to training his powers due to his anger at losing Liz and his panic that he might lose someone else. Fear and revenge were two powerful motivators, especially when combined with guilt. It would have lead Max right to him… provided, of course, that he made sure none of his involvement was ever discovered.

But if Liz had been hurt, Maria would have fallen apart. She needed her best friend right now. So, because of Maria's feelings, Nasedo had chosen to leave Liz Parker alone. He could still gain the trust of the Royal Four by using Maria instead, and it would not endanger her life too much.

Besides, he could protect her until the Royal Four arrived. He could ensure that she was safe.

As Maria straightened up, he shape-shifted into a different form, that of a typical southwestern farmer. He moved away from, watching from a safe distance as she looked around, blinking in the light.

Maria rubbed her eyes, trying to sort through her muddled thoughts. Where was she? What was going on? She remembered walking into the back room after her shift, and then… everything after that was a tangle of confused pictures and flashes. The FBI had been involved. They'd taken her… how? She didn't remember the details. She'd escaped… but again how had she done that? She'd made it to this carnival and called Michael… was he here? On his way? Would he find her before the FBI caught up with her again?

The memories were just so jumbled. She rubbed the back of her head. She must have hit it pretty hard. It hurt, and that would explain her loss of memory. Groaning, she started walking into the crowds of people, trying to figure out what to do now. Should she find another pay phone and call Michael again?

Nasedo watched her go, then trailed her at a distance. He had not used the ability to alter memories before, and he had not been entirely sure that it would work well enough for him. But it had, and Maria did not appear to realize that he had been in anyway involved in her abduction.

Like he had told her earlier, the others would never know that he had played a role in this.

* * *

Michael was already jumping out of the car before it had fully stopped. Max had to yell at him to wait, and he did it with an ungraceful glower. Tess and Liz followed Max as they joined Michael, and moments later Alex and Isabel were parking and hurrying towards them. 

"Alright, once we get inside the carnival, we're going to split up. Isabel and Michael, go with Alex. Tess, Liz, and I will go the other direction," Max said hastily. Nodding at Tess, he continued, "Tess will keep her senses open to see if she can pick up on Maria."

"With all these people here, that's a really long shot," Tess said softly, abruptly wishing she had better control over her abilities. What was it the shape-shifter had said? By the time she realized she needed control, it would already be too late? She would have hurt someone she cared about? She would have endangered herself?

Was this one of those situations?

But Max didn't respond to her words. Instead, he said, "Check in every fifteen minutes. Call earlier if you find everything. Keep your cell phones handy. Got it?"

"Yes, we understand," Michael replied impatiently. "Let's go." And he started walking away.

Isabel hurried to follow him, and then Max gave Tess a searching look, hesitating as though he wanted to say something. He didn't say anything, however, just turned and walked after his sister and best friend.

"Should we alert the authorities?" Alex asked Liz, already knowing that they couldn't do that. Still, what if they weren't able to find Maria/ Wouldn't it be better if they had more people looking?

Liz shook her head. "No, too dangerous. We'll find her." Her own words did not sound reassuring, even to her, and she sighed and followed after Max.

"But what if we don't?" Alex muttered, even though Liz couldn't hear him anymore. "What if we don't find her?" He glanced over towards where the security officers, those in charge of preserving order and safety at the carnival, stood together, chatting. He took a step towards them, wanting to tell them that a friend was missing, wanting the added assurance of other people looking for Maria as well.

Tess reached out and grabbed Alex's arm, stopping him before he could go anywhere. "Look at me," she ordered harshly, tightening her grip when Alex did not acquiesce to her request. "Look at me."

Alex raised his eyes to meet her own and found her staring at him with a look of pure determination. Her eyes seemed to glow with energy and her lips were compressed into a thin, straight line.

"We're going to find her," Tess said, her quiet voice underlined with steel. "We're going to find her and save her. You do _not_ get to give up on her… or on us. Understand?"

Alex nodded dumbly, both scared and reassured by Tess' vehemence, and then she let go of his arm and he followed her into the carnival.

They did not see the two men who stepped out of the black Sedan or the Sheriff who climbed out of his own car, and then followed the teenagers into the crowd.

* * *

Next Chapter: Smoke and Mirrors 

Due: Sun 9/30


	93. Smoke and Mirrors

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: This chapter is pretty choppy because I am trying to give the impression that everything is happening all at once. Also, I've had a question or two about who (if anyone) is going to end up in the white room. I think I've given a lot of foreshadowing about that in previous chapters, but if you don't know yet, you'll find out soon...

* * *

Chapter Ninety-Two: Smoke and Mirrors

Maria started walking towards the exit of the carnival, constantly glancing around her, checking for anyone who might look suspicious. She didn't know what had happened to the FBI, but they had to be around her somewhere. Her memories were just a jumble of confused glimpses, but she could only assume that it was an affect of shock. She was terrified, as much as she didn't want to admit it.

And then she saw them. They were dressed in black suits, which made them stand out in the crowd. There were two of them, and the one closest to her had been in the woods with her the night Ms. Topolski was killed. She inhaled sharply, and tried to melt back into the crowd.

It wasn't in time. One of them looked over and saw her. He began to walk towards her, gesturing for the other to stay behind. He was moving rapidly across the ground, and she turned and ran.

* * *

The carnival was in full swing. The crowd pushed in around them, pulsating with an energy all its own. The air was filled with noise, a combination of cries and laughter and shouting and the stomping of thousands of feet over the cement ground. The sun burned down, scorching the earth. 

Michael blinked as a drop of sweat fell into his eyes. He flicked his hair out of his face and looked around. In front of him was a roller coaster, and to the left were a series of booths selling drinks, hot dogs, candy, and other merchandise. It was too densely packed, he would never be able to find Maria in this.

He and Isabel exchanged a brief glance. She look scared as well, but she was doing her best to hide it. Still, her could see, reflected in her eyes, his own apprehensions.

"How are we going to find her in this?" Alex asked, drawing level with Isabel and Michael. "She could be anywhere!"

"Okay, but she got away from whoever had her, right? Because she called Michael," Isabel said, thinking hard. "So… if she had escaped… where would she go?"

"She'd get out of the carnival," Alex replied. "She'd get as far away from whoever took her as possible."

"Or she'd stay in the carnival because there were enough people here to hide her from her kidnapers," Michael countered grimly. "Besides, when she called me, she said she was at the carnival. She wouldn't have said that if she was planning on leaving."

"She'd want to hide somewhere," Isabel mused. "If you were Maria, where would you hide?" She directed the question at Alex, but he didn't have an answer. Instead, he just gave a shrug, and Isabel let out a hiss of frustration.

"Somewhere out of the sun," Alex said at last.

Before Isabel could reply to this, however, Michael caught her hand and pointed. She and Alex both turned to see what he was looking at, and Isabel could barely restrain the gasp of horror that threatened to leave her lips.

"Isn't that Valenti?"

Sure enough, Jim Valenti was peering through the crowd, clearly trying to find somebody. He wasn't looking towards them, so Michael took the opportunity to pull Isabel and Alex into hiding behind a nearby concession stand.

"What is he doing here?" Isabel demanded breathlessly. "He didn't take Maria… did he?"

"No," Alex whispered. "He wouldn't." But it didn't answer the obvious question that still hung in the air between them.

If he hadn't kidnapped Maria, how did he know she'd be here?

"Do you think she called him also?" Isabel murmured. "You know… when you're in trouble, call the police."

"Not when it is this kind of trouble," Michael countered with a growl. "She would know not to call him." He sighed, then said, "Okay, whatever reason he's here, it has to be because of Maria. So I saw we follow him. Maybe he'll lead us to her."

"At the very least, we can figure out why he's here," Isabel agreed. She pulled out her cell phone and quickly dialed a number. "I'm going to tell Max what's going on," she explained.

Michael nodded, that peeked around the concession stand, watching Valenti.

* * *

Max hung up the phone and gave Tess a grim look. "Valenti's here. Isabel's just seen him." 

"Jim?" Tess asked disbelievingly. "But… why?" It didn't make any sense. She refused to believe that Jim was in any way related to Maria's abduction.

"I don't know," Max said. "Maria wasn't with him." He looked away as he added, "But he's got to be mixed up in this somehow." He didn't want to see the anger that he knew would appear in Tess' eyes at his accusation.

Sure enough, Tess protested instantly. "You don't know that," she snapped.

"Guys," Liz interrupted, "I think we have other problems to worry about." She nodded to a man standing directly in front of them, about twenty feet away. He was dressed in a nicely cut black suit. And he was staring straight at them.

"Damn it!" Max swore.

At the same time, Tess whispered, "The FBI?"

He started walking towards them. Max, without thinking, discreetly wiggled his fingers at a nearby arcade, causing the pole supporting the tent to collapse directly in front of the FBI agent, bringing the stretch of cloth with it.

Max grabbed Liz's arm, gestured to Tess, and the three of them hurried away, blending into the crowd. The FBI agent started running behind them, his hand falling discreetly to his waist where his gun was hidden. But he wasn't fast enough to catch them, and they faded into the masses of people.

* * *

"What the hell is going on?" Isabel demanded as she hung up the phone. Turning to Michael and Alex, she explained, "That was Max. The FBI is here as well." 

"Do you think Valenti's working with them?" Alex questioned.

Isabel shrugged and Michael rubbed the back of his head absently.

"We need to find Maria and get out of here," Michael ordered, and they continued pushing their way through the crowd, following Valenti.

* * *

Maria panted as she ran, her breath coming in short gasps. The FBI agent was still right behind her and she didn't know how much energy she had left. She needed to find somewhere to hide, but there was nothing around her except games and rides. 

Up ahead, a structure loomed like a tall house, and she caught sight of the sign on the entrance.

The Mirror Maze.

She chanced a glance behind her. The FBI agent was getting closer. Not knowing what else to do, she started towards the Maze. It would be cooler in there, out of the sun, and maybe she could lose her pursuer somewhere in the maze.

* * *

"Maria," Tess said, catching sight of the blonde girl whipping in between the doors of the Mirror Maze, the FBI agent in hot pursuit. 

Liz and Max spun around to stare at Tess, but the hybrid Queen had already started running towards the Maze. Liz and Max followed at her heels.

* * *

It was dark and cool inside the Maze. It took Maria a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. All around her, she could see reflections of herself, distorted and twisted. To her left, there was a glass panel separating her from another pathway in the maze. Up ahead, the labyrinth twisted and turned out of sight around a sharp corner. 

She walked as fast as she could, wanting to put as much distance between herself and the agent as possible. But her heart was beating frantically and her lungs hurt and she had to fight just to keep moving. The fear was almost paralyzing; she had seen the look on the other man's face. He'd kill her if he had to, but he didn't look like he had any intention of letting her escape.

It was quiet. She heard the echo of footsteps, it sounded like more than one pair. Was it just an effect of the maze, or were there others in here? More FBI?

She didn't want to think about it, about what might happen if she had to escape several agents instead of just one. She forced herself to keep walking, searching frantically for a side exit, anything to get her out of here and safely away from them all.

"Split up," Max whispered. "Tess, go left. Liz and I will go right. Keep quiet. Reach out for me with your gifts if you find her."

"I don't think this is a good idea," Liz murmured. "We should stick together."

"No," Tess said sharply, looking around at her reflections in the glass mirrors. "Max is right. We'll find her faster this way, and there's someone else in here who will kill her if he has to."

* * *

Isabel glanced down at her phone as the text message appeared. She read it through once, then said quickly, "They saw Maria. She ran into the Mirror Maze. The FBI are after her. The others went to find her." 

"Well? What are we waiting for?" Michael demanded, scanning the ground for any sign of something called a Mirror Maze. If they knew where Maria was, there was no reason to tail Valenti anymore. "Let's go."

"There!" Alex pointed towards a distant building. "I think that's it."

The three of them set off towards the Maze, so enwrapped in their thoughts of Maria and the others that they did not notice Valenti turn around and spot them.

Valenti paused, then he followed the three teenagers through the crowds.

* * *

Maria turned the corner of the Mirror Maze and nearly ran into Tess. She took a step backwards, stunned, and then gasped out, "Oh, God, Tess. I have never been happier to see anyone in my entire life." She could have cried with relief. 

Tess grabbed Maria's arm and started pulling her through the Maze. "We need to get you out of here," she ordered tersely. As she dragged Maria behind her, she quickly sent her senses out towards Max, ramming into his mind with as much force as she could spare, hoping he would sense her message.

"How did you find me?" Maria asked, hurrying to keep up with the fast pace Tess was setting.

"How did you end up here?" Tess asked in return.

"The FBI," Maria said. "They came to the Crashdown. I escaped when we were stopped at a red light right outside the carnival. I ran in here, they followed."

Tess stopped and stared at Maria, a puzzled expression in her eyes. How had Maria, a mere human teenager, escaped from the FBI all by herself? Somehow, it seemed unlikely that she would have been able to get out of the car on her own… unless the FBI wanted her to escape. Unless this was some type of trap.

Just as she the thought was occurring to her, two FBI agents appeared at the end of the corridor of mirrors. They both had guns in their hands.

"Going somewhere?" one of them asked quietly. "It's really no use to run. We called for back up. There are five more agents in this Maze. You're not getting out."

Tess raised her hand and pointed her finger straight at the agent. "Neither are you," she said, and a burst of energy flooded from her hand, smashing the mirrors all around her, and sending a cascade of shards of glass raining down on the two men.

Tess spun around and she and Maria tore down the corridor in the other direction.

The labyrinth spilled out into a larger corridor near what Maria figured must have been the center of the maze. All around her, her own reflection stared back, white-faced and scared. The blood was pounding in her ears.

"They knew…" she whispered to Tess.

Tess glanced over her shoulder at Maria but did not stop running. "Knew what?" she asked, as they left the larger corridor and entered a thin hallway. Here the mirrors made them all look tall, so tall that their heads disappeared at the very top of their reflections.

"That you would come. If I escaped, if I called…" Maria had reached the same conclusion Tess had only moments before. "It's a trap."

Before Tess could reply, however, two figures came barreling into the hallway of mirrors through an entrance up ahead of them. Tess instinctively raised a hand, but lowered it when she saw who was there.

"Maria!" Liz rushed towards her friend, hugging her tightly. "Thank God."

"We can have a happy reunion later," Max said brusquely, "but we still need to get out of here." To Tess, he added, "I saw two agents. They almost saw Liz and I… I think they know we're here."

"There are seven total," Tess said. "We had a run in with two of them… I blew up some mirrors."

"They've got the exits covered. There's no way we're getting out of here," Max said angrily, looking around. "At least, not without them noticing."

"We don't need to go out the exits," Liz said pointedly. "You and Tess can make an exit for us."

"It's too dangerous," Max said quickly. "Tess and I can't control that type of explosion. Instead of creating an exit, we could destroy the entire place. Especially since it's glass and it easily breaks… without Michael…" He shook his head in frustration.

"Take the risk," Liz pressed. "We don't really have a choice."

As she spoke the words, another agent appeared at the end of the hallway. The agent quickly fired his gun straight at them, but Max raised a force-field and the bullet ricocheted off. The four teenagers turned and ran in the other direction, backtracking the way Tess and Maria had come.

"Max, we need to get out of here," Maria cried as the FBI agent followed them, his footsteps slamming against the ground.

Max nodded, seeing the sense in her words. Besides, someone would have noticed the strange noises coming from the Maze by now, and it was only a matter of time before the security appeared. They needed to get out of the structure and as far away as possible before that happened, or they wouldn't be safe.

Although, seeing as the FBI had seen them use their gifts multiple times in the past few minutes, he wondered if they would ever be safe again.

Stopping, he raised his hand at a mirror and felt the energy leave his palm. The explosion caused fragments of glass to fly through the air, but the others turned away, shielding their faces. The blast had cleared a small pathway into the next hallway of mirrors.

"Let's go," Max ordered. If he just blew up the mirrors one by one, it would be safer and they might still be able to get out in time.

Liz and Maria raced in front of him. Tess was about to follow when two FBI agents appeared next to her and Max, close enough to reach out and grab the hybrid King.

"No!" Tess cried, reacting purely on instinct and attacking the agent with all the power she could muster. He fell backwards, smashing into the mirrors and dropping Max, before sliding to the floor, stunned. But then the other agent was there, pointing his gun at Max, and Tess did the only thing she knew would save him.

She closed her eyes and she concentrated and the other agent began to scream.

"Get it away from me! Get it away!" the agent screamed, now hitting the air with his gun, attaching something invisible. All around him, all he could see were thousands of giant spiders with sharp fangs, attacking him over and over and over.

Tess dropped the mind-warped and turned to Max who had scurried away from the agents. They only had a few seconds before the still-conscious agent realized that it had been a mirage and started attacking them again. They couldn't explode their way out of here, mirror by mirror. They needed to get out, now.

So Tess flung out both her hands and concentrated on shattering the mirrors between the teenagers and freedom.

And then Valenti appeared.

Tess turned stunned eyes towards her adopted father. He was staring at her and Max and the FBI agents, unable to fully comprehend what was happening. Max was separated from Tess by two agents and piles of broken glass, he tried reaching out for her but she was too stunned to notice. She and Valenti just stood there, frozen, staring at each other in a silent tableau.

"_NO!_"

The word erupted from Tess' lips, her eyes going wide with horror and she realized what was going to happen. But now that she had started, she couldn't control what was happening. It was Michael who had the ability to control energy explosions, Michael who could direct his own force into concentrated eruptions. Not her.

Helpless to do anything, she watched as the entire row of mirrors shattered, spreading outwards, causing the glass structure to crumble over Jim, forcing him to the ground.

Max made a wild grab for Tess but she raced into the raining glass, moving towards Jim as the other agents appeared on the scene.

* * *

Maria and Liz turned back towards the sound of the explosion, but Michael and Isabel appeared, Alex not far behind. Racing towards them, Michael grabbed Maria and hugged her tightly, relief coursing through him, then turned to Liz. 

"Where are Max and Tess?" he asked.

"Back there," Liz pointed towards the narrow opening in the mirrors behind them.

"Izzy, get them out of here. I'll go back for Max and Tess," Michael directed, letting go of Maria and racing towards his endangered family.

"Come on," Isabel directed, and they followed her into the harsh glare of the afternoon sun.

* * *

At the parking lot, Maria and Liz waited impatiently as Alex stared blankly towards the carnival and Isabel paced worriedly. 

And then Max appeared, leading a dazed and bruised Jim Valenti. Michael followed, his expression dark and furious. Isabel hurried to her brother, hugging him quickly, but the questioning look remained in her eyes. Michael moved past them both to Maria and hugged her again, letting his face fall into her hair.

But when Max spoke, his voice did not have the cheerful tone of someone who has successfully rescued a friend from danger. It was dull and frightened and angry.

"They have Tess." He looked away as Liz, Maria, Isabel, and Alex also turned their attention towards him. "She ran to save Sheriff Valenti, and I… I tried to stop her, but the FBI… they were everywhere, I could only get one of them out… and Tess mind-warped them so they couldn't see me or Valenti, but they saw her…" He trailed off, then concluded, "The FBI has Tess."

* * *

Everything was white. 

Bright, eye-scorching, brilliantly painful white.

Tess looked around the room, pacing worriedly, fear etched into every feature of her body. She shouldn't let them see her panic, shouldn't let them no that she was terrified.

But she _was_ terrified.

White.

All white.

The nightmares…

There were no doors, no windows. A mirror at one end of the room. Was it a one-way mirror? Was someone sitting on the other side, watching her?

She was trapped.

All white.

The nightmare was alive.

* * *

Deputy Fisher stared at the sight of the car crash, scribbling notes on his pad. As his phone ran, he reached for it and glanced at the number. "Excuse me," he said to the other officers there, and then stepped away so that he could answer the call in private. 

Once he was out of the other's earshot, he flipped open the cover of the phone, a grim smile of satisfaction on his features. He knew, instinctively, what the caller was going to say.

"Yes?"

"Agent Pierce," the caller said quickly, "we've apprehended one of the targets. Tess Harding."

"Good work, Agent Willis," Pierce answered, pleased. It would be over soon. They would have the answers, the threats would be removed, and he could end this charade as Deputy Fisher.

"What are your orders?" Willis asked.

"Leave her alone for tonight. Let her get some rest. She's going to have a very full day tomorrow," Pierce replied.

* * *

Next Chapter: White Room 

Due: Sun 10/7


	94. White Room

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: The next few chapters are going to have some slightly-more-graphic-than-usual scenes. It won't be too graphic since I don't like that sort of thing, but some of it will be very unpleasant.

* * *

Chapter Ninety-Three: White Room

She'd had the dreams, over and over. The flashes of white, the pain, the cold and hot, the horror. Even Michael, who had been the one to actually receive the original flash, had not had the dreams as often as she did. She'd known that it was a warning, a sign, but for all her intuition she had missed the obvious meaning.

She had never imagined that she would end up here.

Tess Harding stopped pacing and stood in the center of the white room, staring at the emptiness all around her, and wondered what she was supposed to do now.

* * *

"What are you?" Valenti demanded, staring at Max. They had driven from the carnival back towards Roswell, but had stopped at a rest stop along the highway. Here they could be relatively inconspicuous, their only company being the few truckers who stopped for coffee in the middle of the long drives down the interstate highways. They stood outside the cars now, huddled together in a little group, trying to sort out what had just happened.

"I'm Max Evans," Max replied tensely, his entire body tense. He turned away from the irate Sheriff, not even bothering to answer any of his friends' questioning looks. He saw it, over and over, the way Tess had cried out in horror as Jim was buried under the glass. He remembered reaching for her, his hand closing over air as she sacrificed her own safety to save the man who was, for all intents and purposes, her father.

"You… how… what happened?" Valenti stuttered, not understanding. He couldn't wrap his mind around all that he had seen, all that he had witnessed. Nothing made sense anymore, now that he knew the truth. About them, about Tess…

Tess.

He shook his head, lifting his hands to his hair, pressing his fingers against his temples.

"Max?" Isabel asked, turning away from the Sheriff as well. She knew they would have to tell him something, but right now they had to worry about Tess. "What now?"

"The silver handprints, the deaths, Ms. Topolski…" Valenti muttered, his eyes now moving from Max to Isabel, and then finally to Michael. "You… all of you… the shooting?"

"We need to find Tess and then…" Max trailed off. And then what? What was supposed to happen next?

"The hit and run," Valenti interrupted, turning to Maria. "Was that you? Did you blow up the car?"

Maria, who was leaning back against Michael's chest, blinked and shook her head, confused. "I don't… what?" She didn't remember a car exploding, and she couldn't think clearly. The only thing that penetrated her mind now was the realization that Tess was trapped, and all because the alien had tried to save her friends and family.

"We shouldn't have split up," Max said, filled with a growing sense of guilt. "In the Mirror Maze, I shouldn't have… I should have been able to stop her…"

"What are they doing to her?" Isabel questioned, her voice shaking with barely contained terror. "Oh, God, what if she's already dead?"

"No," Max said, shaking his head in denial. "No, she's not, she wouldn't…" He lifted haunted eyes to his sister and said with all the conviction he could muster, "If she was dead, we would feel it."

"What are you talking about?" Valenti exploded, his hand resting subconsciously on the handle of the gun at his waist. "What is going on?" The others simply looked at him in silence, unable to explain anything, and he spat, "Tell me!"

"Why were you at the carnival?" Max asked authoritatively, his voice rising over Valenti's. "Did you follow us?"

"I'm the one asking the questions," Valenti shot back, still shaking with rage. His prior shock had given way to a profound feeling of betrayal, now that he knew just how deeply involved in this Tess really was. How could he have opened his door to this… this… thing? He didn't even know _what_ she was.

"We don't have time for this," Max snapped harshly. "We need to find Tess." Turning to Michael, he said, "If the FBI have her, then there is no saying what they'll do."

"What does the FBI want?" Valenti cut in coldly, cruelly. "Why is Tess so important to them? What _is_ Tess?"

"She's your daughter," Liz said softly, speaking up for the first time since they had left the carnival. She stood next to Max, slipping her hand into his to give him her moral support and strength, but she kept her gaze focused on Valenti. "You know exactly who she is. She's your daughter."

"Is she?" Valenti retorted.

"Did you see her?" Max demanded, his voice dropping in volume while rising in intensity. His words were bitter and cold as he spoke. "Did you see her screaming when she thought you might die? Did you see her run towards you, try to save you? Did you see her when she stood there and let the FBI take her because it was the only way she could ensure you would get out safely?" He punctuated each sentence by slamming his fist on the hood of his car, driving the point home over and over until Valenti was forced to listen to his words. "Did you see her?"

She'd lied to him, she'd manipulated him. She'd looked him in the eyes and called herself his daughter while going behind his back to sabotage his work. Had she been against him from the very start, from the infamous shooting at the Crashdown?

Valenti swallowed, his throat dry, his eyes burning. Did he see her? Yes, yes he saw. He saw the anguish and horror on her face, he saw the way she looked at him in that split second before everything changed. He saw the fear and the panic and the guilt in her eyes.

How was he supposed to reconcile these to versions of Tess?

"If you can't see how much Tess loves you, then you're an idiot," Max said harshly, his own terror making his words crueler than he had intended. "But if you don't want to help us, that's your own business. Just don't stand in my way."

He and Valenti locked gazes for a beat, then Valenti looked away.

"Come on," Max ordered, beckoning the others. "Let's go."

"Where?" Alex asked, falling in line behind Max as he walked to the door of the car.

"Back to Roswell. We need a plan. And when we have one, we're going to make the FBI regret ever taking Tess."

* * *

"Hello, Ms. Harding," a voice said.

Tess spun around as a door previously invisible to her opened and a man walked through. She stared at him for a moment, her heart skipping several beats, before asking in disbelief, "Deputy Fisher?"

"Yes, that is the name you know me by," Pierce replied, closing the door behind him and regarding Tess warily. "But perhaps I should reintroduce myself. My real name is Agent Donald Pierce."

Tess didn't say anything. She didn't want to reveal what she did or didn't know, not until she had a better idea of what exactly was going to happen to her. But the fear that she had felt moments before was now replaced by bubbling fury that this man who had posed as one of Jim's deputies was actually the person continually trying to destroy them all.

"Where am I?" Tess asked finally.

"Some place no one can find you," Pierce replied easily. "Now… no funny business, alright?" He jerked his head to the mirror on the far wall. There are several armed agents behind that mirror, just waiting for a chance to practice their shooting. If you try to escape, you won't make it very far."

"Why am I here?" Tess pressed, keeping her face completely neutral.

"That's what I would like to find out," Pierce answered smoothly. "I know quite a bit about you, but I'd like a few more answers." He smirked slightly and asked, "Where are you from?"

"Roswell," Tess answered without hesitation. "But you know Jim Valenti, so you should know who I am also."

Pierce didn't appear troubled by her answer. He simply asked, "What is the name of your home planet?"

"Earth," Tess shot back. Pierce didn't say anything, so she asked, "Who exactly do you think I am?"

"It isn't a question of who," Pierce replied calmly, still staring at her with the same pleasant smile affixed to his face. "It's a question of _what_." He turned away from Tess and wandered over to the wall, leaning back against it.

Tess chanced a look at the mirror. If there really were armed agents behind it, she didn't stand a chance. She might be able to mind-warp Pierce, but then how would she get out of here? The others behind the mirror would see her, and even if she mind-warped them also, she'd be too busy holding her mind-warp in place to actually be able to walk out of the room… She looked around. She couldn't even find the door.

"Let's try a different set of questions, shall we?" Pierce said finally. "Delta, Colorado, 1962. Agent Lewis, the first head of this Special Unit, was found dead. His internal organs had reached a temperature of one hundred and eighty degrees Fahrenheit. A silver handprint was found on his chest." He paused, eyeing Tess. "What do you know about that?"

"Nothing," Tess said, forcing her face to remain neutral. If Nasedo was too be believed, then he was still in the white room in 1962. Which meant that this murder had to be the work of one of these unsubstantiated enemy aliens somewhere out there.

"Agent Daniel Summers, 1999. That one is a bit more recent," Pierce said. "Ring a bell?"

Tess shook her head wordlessly. How many deaths were these other aliens responsible for?

"Fine," Pierce said. He turned towards the mirror and gave a slight nod of his head. His signal was picked up on by someone behind the glass because the almost invisible door opened again, and a man stepped into the room, carrying a stack of photographs in his arms. He handed the photographs to Pierce, gave Tess a look of utter disgust, and walked back out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Tess frowned, but didn't ask what the photographs were. She couldn't show interest in this conversation, and she certainly couldn't do anything that would risk having her gifts exposed. For now, she needed to stay calm and quiet. She needed to wait.

Pierce looked down at the pictures and sorted through them, picking out one in particular. "I take it this conversation bores you. Perhaps you would like to have one a bit more relevant?" He walked back to Tess and extended his hand, holding out the photograph. "What can you tell me about this one?"

Tess looked at the picture, and the entire world slipped sideways on its axis and fell away from her, sending her cart-wheeling into the figurative void of utter horror.

The car was twisted on its side. The windows were shattered, glass scattered over the ground. The twisted metal was charred and melted in places, and raging flames licked at the spilled oil leaking from the destroyed engine. Through the partially open passenger door, she could see them, bodies sprawled against the seats, covered in blood. The woman's eyes were wide opened and terrified, the man's face was bruised and bloody and turned to the side, falling at a strange angle. She realized his neck had snapped from the impact of the fall.

A silver handprint glowered eerily in the dark of the night.

Pierce watched the expressions leap into her eyes and said quietly, "Andrew and Jessica Harding, Los Angeles, 1992. Tell me, what do you know about _that_ one?"

Tess didn't answer. She didn't even register the question, just kept staring at the picture, over and over.

"What were they?" Pierce continued, his voice still the same calm, almost gentle tone that he had used before. "A means to an end? Someone to stay with until you found the rest of your kind? Did you kill them yourself, or did you ask someone else to do it?" It sounded almost as though he was asking out of mere curiosity for something academic that he did not understand, something simple and harmless. But his words, cruel and vicious, echoed in the white room, slicing through Tess as painfully as cold steel.

"Stop it," Tess whispered, tears pooling in her eyes.

"Did you even pretend to cry at their funeral? Or were you too busy moving on to the next part of your plan? Too busy figuring out how to get to Roswell to care about the lives you'd just destroyed."

Tess lifted her face towards him, her eyes burning with blue fire. "Shut up!" she spat, the words bursting from her throat as her entire body started shaking with anger. She could feel the power coursing through her veins, threatening to erupt.

"Did they feel pain when they died?" Pierce pressed. He gestured to the picture in her hand and said, "Jessica looks scared, doesn't she? Was she scared? Did she beg for her life? Did it even matter to you?"

Her anger spilled out of her hands in a sudden wave of energy she could neither stop nor control. Pierce was thrown backwards, into the far wall, the remaining pictures flying from his hands. Each one showed the car wreck from a different angle, each one showed the two lifeless bodies and the eerily glowing handprint. They floated down around her.

Pierce staggered back to his feet, his face contorted with rage. At the same time, the door flung open and several men ran into the room. Tess spun to face them, but not in time, and as one man grabbed her arm, she felt the sharp sting of something pressing into the skin on the inside of her elbow.

She looked down, and saw the needle piercing her skin.

Her last conscious thought was the guilt-ridden realization that she had just given them undeniable proof that she had alien gifts, and then the world faded around her and she succumbed to the blackness.

* * *

Neither of Max's parents were home, for which they were all incredibly grateful. Liz and Maria both took seats on the sofa, sitting close together and watching their respective significant others. Max was leaning against the wall, his arms folded over his chest, while Michael paced relentlessly. Alex sat perched on the end of the armchair, silent and grim.

Isabel rushed into the room, clutching her yearbook in her hands. On the way back to Roswell, Max had decided their first step needed to be to locate Tess, and Isabel was the only one who had a chance of doing that. The blonde hybrid paused as all eyes turned towards her.

"What if I can't find her, Max? I can only do this if she's asleep."

"That's because you've never tried to dream-walk anyone who was awake," Max replied. Isabel opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off and added, "Just try, Isabel. You're the only one who can locate her right now."

"Great," Isabel thought, sending out a huff of breath. "No pressure there."

"What about Valenti?" Michael asked, ignoring Isabel's comment. He knew how nervous she was, how nervous they all were, and it wouldn't help to dwell on their insecurities.

Max shook his head decisively. "He's not a problem right now."

"But he will be," Liz said. "He's in shock now, but later… He's going to want answers, Max. What are we going to tell him?"

"Let's wait and cross that bridge when we get to it," Max answered. "Right now, we need to focus on Tess." He glanced at Isabel. "Are you going to need to lie down?"

Isabel nodded and swallowed, looking nervous. She took a seat on the sofa, and both Liz and Maria stood up and got out of her way. Slowly, she lowered herself onto her back, flipping through the yearbook as she did so. She stopped at Tess' picture and stared at it for a moment.

"Let's give her some space," Max said abruptly, seeing the fear in his sister's eyes. "Everyone into the kitchen," he ordered, and they quickly followed his command. But Max reached out and caught Alex by the arm, halting his movement.

"What?" Alex asked.

Max jerked his head towards Isabel. "Help her," he directed.

It was just Alex and Isabel alone in the living room, and Alex walked slowly over to the sofa. He sat down on the very edge and gave Isabel what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

"What if I can't do this?" Isabel whispered. "What if I can't find her? Or, what if I do find her, but I can't get back?"

"You've always come back before," Alex replied.

Isabel closed her eyes. "That was dream-walking," she explained. "This… it's not the same thing. Not if she isn't asleep. I don't know what I'm doing."

Alex grabbed Isabel's hand, holding it tight. "You're saving your friend," he said firmly. "And I'm right here. I'm going to hold on to you. So that you'll always be able to find your way back."

* * *

The world was swimming. Through her own tear-filled eyes, she could barely understand what was happening. She was sitting on something, a chair, she thought, like the chairs in the dentist's office. Pierce was standing over her, watching her with a calculating expression. She blinked once or twice, willing her head to stop pounding, and took a few shallow breaths.

"Don't try anything, Ms. Harding," Pierce said in the same infuriatingly calm voice. "I've taken the liberty of administering a serum to you. It suppresses the neurotransmitters in your cerebral cortex. That is where most of your powers come from, you know."

"Gifts," Tess corrected, her voice sounding weak even to her own ears. "We call them gifts." Pierce didn't say anything to that, so she asked, "How do you know all this?"

"Experiments on the alien we had captured. I believe you call him Nasedo?" Pierce pressed his lips into a thin line and explained, "He's another one with a penchant for killing, isn't he? He certainly did it to a few of our men in his escape from here."

Tess tried to move, but her limbs felt like wax. Everything seemed harder to comprehend, and just speaking took way too much energy. She was, quite obviously, still drugged.

"So, tell me," Pierce said, turning away, "what happened to your spaceship after the crash? We never did find all of it. And Nasedo was less than forthcoming…"

"Was he?" Tess asked, choking on the words. "What a pity."

Pierce gave her a grim smile, less than pleased by her sarcasm. "Come now, Ms. Harding. Do you really want to be so difficult?"

Tess forced herself to reply with a mocking laugh. "You've kidnapped me, drugged me, locked me in a room. Why would I want to cooperate?" Her words slurred slightly at the end, the effort of talking almost too much.

_Tess?_

The word was faint, the presence just barely brushing against her mind. She could feel Isabel, but she couldn't see her, like the other girl was somehow inside her brain.

"Here's what I don't quite understand," Pierce said, ignoring Tess' comment. "The x-rays show that your bone structure exactly mimics that of a human. As do your muscles, your internal organs, your heart. And yet, your blood… well, that is the telling sign, isn't it? You can learn everything about someone from their blood."

"Hmm… blood always tells," Tess agreed, nodding slowly. "And what does your blood look like, Agent Pierce? Does it have 'sadistic psychopath' written across it?" As she spoke, she reached out for Isabel, tentatively trying to send her mind into the emptiness of space, hoping that it would serve as a beacon for Isabel to find her.

_Isabel?_

_I'm here, Tess. Just relax._

"Psychopath?" Pierce echoed. "I've never killed anyone for pleasure."

"No," Tess snapped, "just for greed and curiosity. You might not enjoy killing, but you do it nonetheless."

She felt Isabel inside her mind now, strong and sure. She forced images into her mind, images she prayed Isabel would see and understand. She thought of Pierce, thought of his words to her when they were first introduced. She showed any clue she could of where she was, from the way it felt to be driven here in the van to the barest glimpse of signs and symbols she had seen on the floor and walls, to the brilliant white of the room.

_Deputy Fisher?_

_Look again._

_Wait… he's Pierce…_

Isabel was fading, moving away. Tess felt a sudden surge of panic, not wanting to be left alone again. But she couldn't hold on to Isabel, and the other girl slipped away, offering one last bit of reassurance.

_Hold on, Tess. We're coming._

And then she was alone again.

"And you don't kill?" Pierce said coolly. "I'm risking my life to save my country, my planet from being colonized by alien life. By you. Can you claim to be doing anything as noble?"

Tess didn't answer right away. The effects of the drug had all but worn off now, and she could think clearly again, move her own limbs again. She pushed herself up in the chair so that she was no longer leaning against the cushioned back.

"You call this noble?" she asked. "Kidnap and interrogation? What's next? Torture?"

Pierce grinned maliciously. "Only if you insist on being unhelpful," he replied, and she could tell from the coldness in his tone and the look in his eyes that he was deadly serious.

* * *

Isabel opened her eyes with a start, and found that she was holding Alex's hand in a visor-like grip, practically crushing it in her own fear. She quickly let go of his hand and he winced a little, but didn't comment on it.

Max poked his head into the room. "Isabel?"

Isabel sat up and ran a hand through her hair, sorting out her confused thoughts. "They've done something to her," she said. "She couldn't reach me the way she usually can… like there was something blocking her gifts."

"But did you connect to her?" Max pressed.

Isabel nodded. "They put her in the white room, Max," she murmured. "They're hurting her."

"The white room?" Michael asked worriedly, entering into the living room. He looked from Isabel to Max and said quietly, "We need to find her. Fast."

"Who's they?" Max asked. "The FBI? Did you see who was behind everything? Was it Agent Pierce?" This man who even Nasedo had been afraid of… He did not want to go up against Pierce, but if he had Tess, then they had no other choice.

"Pierce is Fisher. Deputy Fisher," Isabel said. She looked sideways at Alex, then stood up. "We need to… we need to get to her before he does anything… irreversible."

It was a mark of how worried Max was that he didn't even bother remarking on the fact that one of the deputies, one of the men tasked with keeping the inhabitants of Roswell safe, was also they're greatest enemy. Instead, he simply said, "I agree."

Isabel drew a slow breath and exhaled, thinking over what Tess had shown her. "I think I know where she is."

* * *

Tess bit down so hard on her lip she tasted her own blood, but she refused to scream. Her body felt as though it was being torn apart as electric shocks ran through her. Tears gathered in her eyes and she shut them tightly against the pain, but still it kept coming, over and over.

For a moment, it stopped, and she opened her eyes to see Pierce standing right in front of her. She was strapped to something, but she couldn't even remember what it was. Her brain wasn't functioning properly, too riddled by throbbing pain to focus on anything.

"Are you ready to talk now, Ms. Harding?" Pierce asked, but his voice sounded as though it was coming from far away, floating to her over a great distance.

She licked her lips, again tasting the blood. Spitting it onto the bright white floor, she said coldly, "You're right, Agent Pierce. Torturing a sixteen-year-old girl for information she doesn't have… I can see why you consider your job to be _noble_."

* * *

Michael unrolled the map and spread it out on the table in the UFO Center. The Center was closed, but Max had easily gotten them all access with the key Brody had provided for him, and now they were sorting through the various paraphernalia, looking for the symbol Isabel had seen.

"There!" Isabel pointed to a spot on the map Michael was looking at. It showed an insignia that Michael recognized as a military center. "That's it. That sign was on the floor of the hallway Tess showed me. That's where she is."

Max glanced at the key to the map. "Eagle Rock Military Base," he read. "Conspiracy theorists said that it was the site of the early alien cover-up. Or, at least, that's what they thought. But it says here that it's abandoned now."

Isabel gave a dark chuckle. "It's not as abandoned as they think," she said.

"Okay," Max started, a plan slowly forming in his mind, "you three," he nodded to the humans, "go home. Cover for us. If anyone asks Isabel and I are hanging out with you guys."

"Max…" Liz started to protest.

"No, we're coming with you," Maria argued at the same time.

"You don't have gifts," Max said bluntly. "You can't help us."

"Max, you're taking on the entire FBI," Alex protested. "Do you really think you can take them on by yourselves? You're going to need help."

"From three teenagers?" Michael said with a laugh. "You're not going to be help. You're liabilities, alright, and that's the truth."

"You don't know that," Liz shot back.

"Liz…"

"No, Max, you _don't_ know that. You talk about this like you're going to be great at stopping them, but it's Pierce. Even Nasedo's afraid of him, and Nasedo kills without hesitation."

"We're going to be better at this than any of you will, and you're only going to get in the way," Michael shot back.

"Stop it!" Isabel said forcefully, her raised voice shocking them all into silence. "Just stop it! We do _not_ have time for this. You weren't inside of Tess' head, you didn't see how _scared_ she was, you don't understand what they are doing to her. Max, Michael, and I can get to her faster alone than with the three of you and that is what matters. Finding Tess is the _only_ thing that matters right now!"

"Fine," Maria grumbled, "but I don't like it."

"That doesn't really matter," Michael replied.

"Michael," Maria snapped, irritated as his demeanor.

But Michael reached out and placed a hand on her arm. "Don't," he murmured. "I don't want anything else to happen to you, alright?"

Maria glanced at Max and Isabel, but realized that she wasn't going to get any support from either of them. Reluctantly, she bowed her head in acceptance, but said, "You come back to me, okay?"

Michael gave her the barest hint of a smile. "Of course," he said.

"Be careful," Liz pleaded with Max, wrapping her arms around his waist. "Please?"

Max pressed a kiss into her hair. "I will," he promised.

Alex and Isabel exchanged an awkward look, unsure how they were supposed to act around each other. Alex thought ironically to himself that Isabel had declared them officially broken up because she needed to focus on being friends with Tess first. And now it was Tess who was in the most danger, Tess who Isabel was rushing off to save and leaving him behind.

Alex opened his mouth to say something, but Isabel reached out and squeezed his hand lightly, "I'll see you when I get back," she said, and Alex bit his lip and nodded.

* * *

She was dripping water on the floor. Her body shook as tremors ran up and down her spine. The ice bath had been freezing, the hot water bath boiling, and now she was completely soaked and dripping water on the floor. Her blonde curls stuck to her face, her clothes hung uncomfortably on her body, pressed in odd ways against her skin.

She hurt. So much.

But Isabel had said that the others were coming. She just had to keep holding on, and they would rescue her. She just had to believe, and everything would be okay in the end.

"Ready to talk yet, Ms. Harding?" Pierce asked. He was now sitting on a chair he had brought into the room, a very bright white chair. It was placed in the corner by the door, and he had his arms folded across his chest as though he had all the time in the world to be having this conversation. "Or do I need to do something else to _persuade_ you?"

Tess curled her lip disdainfully and asked, "Who's inhuman now?"

* * *

Nasedo watched the six teenagers as they stood in the UFO Center, saying their goodbyes. He felt himself grimace with disappointment as he observed the way they interacted. Tess was in mortal danger and they were wasting precious time arguing?

But then the Princess exploded at them all and he felt himself smile inwardly, pleased that at least someone was accepting the reality of the situation. These humans, however much they were loved by the Royal Four, were not part of the group. The only ones that mattered were the aliens, and right now the Queen was in peril.

He sighed. This was not what he had expected, this was not the plan. The plan had never involved having one of them end up in the white room. He had simply wanted to scare them, force them to come to Maria's aid. Once they realized the danger they would always be in unless they stopped the FBI right away, it would have been easier to get them to trust him. He would have been necessary for them all.

And, as an added bonus, he would have been able to kill Pierce and finally get his revenge.

He had not expected the FBI to actually capture one of them. Perhaps he was giving them too much credit. Had they known how to use their gifts properly, they would not have been in any danger from mere humans.

He stepped back into the shadows as the door of the Center opened, and the three humans walked out. They looked nervous, all of them, but the brunette waitress looked the most terrified. It was as though she already sensed how much she stood to lose from this risky plan her boyfriend had concocted.

Once they were gone, he turned his attention back to the others. His original plan had been ruined, but he had long since learned how to improvise. This might actually work better for him.

He walked into the Center. The King froze, a half-rolled map in one hand, and the Princess and General both stared apprehensively, not sure what to do. Nasedo smiled inwardly, and began to speak.

"What happened?" he demanded worriedly. "I sensed a change in your energies." He looked around, as though abruptly noticing that one of them was missing. "Where is the Queen? Tess?"

"We're taking care of it," Max snapped hoarsely, glaring at Nasedo. "We don't need your help."

But Nasedo locked eyes with Max. "Are you sure about that?" he asked, keeping his voice level, but filled with apprehension. "The Queen… she's in danger. I feel it." He slanted a look at Michael, who was now looking at the map in Max's hands. "What is that?" Nasedo pressed.

"He could help us," Michael whispered to Max, lowering his voice. Isabel nodded reluctantly, seeing the sense of the situation.

Max placed the rolled up map back on the table and ran a hand through his hair. "The FBI has Tess," he said tightly, "at Eagle Rock Military Base."

Nasedo let out a rush of breath and hissed, "The white room." He paused, then added, "I've been there. I can help you. I can get you in and out." Michael nodded slowly, but Max shook his head, and Isabel appeared undecided.

"Why should we believe you?" Max demanded.

"Because you don't have any other choice," Nasedo answered honestly. "How can you hope to save Tess when you don't even know what you are up against?" Max was wavering, and Nasedo pressed, "Trust me."

* * *

"This is getting a little tiresome, don't you think?" Pierce asked casually as Tess crumpled to the floor, no longer able to sustain her own weight. Her body was shaking like a leaf, every cell was screaming in pain, but she still refused to talk. Looking up at Pierce, she forced a smile to her lips and shook her head.

"I'm having so much _fun_," she gasped.

"Are you now?" Pierce questioned. He seemed slightly impressed by her unyielding refusal to answer any of his questions, but that was tinged by exasperation. "I suppose I could keep this up for days… years, if need be. I never get tired of seeing someone pay for their crimes."

Tess pulled her legs into her chest and regarded Pierce with an expressionless face. Then she said slowly, forcing out each word through a hiss of pain, "At least I'm paying for all the things I've done wrong, all of my crimes. Someday, you're going to have to pay for yours."

* * *

Next Chapter: Deals with the Devil

Due: Sun 10/14


	95. Deals with the Devil

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't know anything

Author's note: Again, this chapter has some violent scenes in it, but nothing too graphic. Last chapter was probably worse.

* * *

Chapter Ninety-Four: Deals With the Devil

"The pain can stop, Ms. Harding, if you'll just cooperate," Pierce said in a reasonable voice, watching as Tess leaned back against the far wall, breathing slowly. "Just tell me what I want to know." He was holding something in his hands, a strange looking black object that reflected the bright light of the room.

Tess forced herself to answer in a level voice, "I can't tell you what I don't know."

"The team found this at the crash site, years ago," Pierce said, holding the black device out towards Tess. "What does it do?"

She looked at it for a moment, studied the sharp edges and angles. It was shaped like a pentagon, but the center was slightly rounded. Each corner had a clear dot on it, like a light-bulb. Etched into the smooth metal was the symbol she had seen, over and over. The four squares encompassing the spirals, connected by the x. The Four Square.

She lifted her eyes to Pierce, feeling suddenly a lot stronger than she had before. It was the Four Square, the symbol of the others, of her family.

And Isabel had said that they were coming for her.

Again, she repeated the same words, but more confidently, more fiercely, "I can't tell you what I don't know."

* * *

"You can't actually be serious about this?" Isabel hissed as the three aliens followed Nasedo out of the UFO Center. "Max, he isn't trustworthy." 

"You're the one who said getting to Tess was the only thing that mattered," Max shot back in a whisper. Isabel glared at him, and he threw his hands into the air. "I just want to save her, Izzy, and this is our best shot."

Michael said nothing, not joining the argument. He had his own reservations, but how else were they going to save Tess? He'd make a deal with Satan himself if it kept his family safe, and Tess was no exception to that.

Nasedo frowned back at the two arguing hybrids. For a moment, he caught Isabel's gaze, and held it. She'd seen through him once, but this time he was more prepared. He would have his revenge on Pierce, no matter what.

Addressing his questions to Isabel, the shape-shifter inquired, "What exactly did the Queen say to you when you connected with her?"

Isabel gave him a wholly suspicious look and replied shortly, "Not much. She was having trouble using her gifts."

Nasedo accepted this with a heavy sigh. "I was afraid of that," he murmured. He looked out at the distant desert in the direction of the military base. "They've blocked her neurotransmitters, prevented the firing of certain synapses in the cerebral cortex…" At the other's blank look, he explained, "They've used a drug to prevent her accessing the part of her brain that controls her abilities."

"They know how to do that?" Isabel asked, curious despite herself.

Nasedo grimaced and nodded. "They know more about you than you know about yourselves. They were never… reluctant… to experiment with different questioning… techniques." His eyes adopted such a haunted look that Isabel felt a sudden surge of pity for him, but she remembered what he had done to all of them and hardened her heart against his obvious pain.

"So she's helpless?" Michael asked in concern. That certainly didn't bode well for them.

"For now, yes," Nasedo conceded. "But the drug will wear off eventually, and if we can somehow prevent the reintroduction of it into her system…" He trailed off, lost in his own thoughts. "I have an idea," he said at last.

"You're not the one calling the shots around here," Michael snapped quickly, but Nasedo sent him a disparaging look.

"Do you want the Queen to die?" he asked pointedly, and the other aliens lapsed into silence. "Come on," he instructed finally. "We don't have much time."

* * *

Maria paced nervously, glancing continually at the stairs behind her. Her mother was asleep, taking a nap to overcome the fatigue that she still suffered as a result of the car accident. When the doctor had said it would be a long time to recovery, she had not realized just what he had meant. Her mother was alive, and that was what really mattered, but wasn't this supposed to get easier? 

Liz was sitting on the sofa, watching Maria with a serious gaze. Alex opposite her, leaning against the wall. He, too, glanced over at the stairs occasionally, as though afraid that Amy DeLuca might appear and start interrogating them all.

Nobody knew what to do, what to think. They were just waiting now, and although Liz and Alex seemed to be holding up well, given the circumstances, Maria had never been a patient person.

Then the knock at the door startled them all, and Maria hurried towards it, wondering who it could be. It was far too early for any of the aliens to be back, and she prayed it wasn't an enemy. But the FBI had come after her once before, would they do it again? They already had Tess, but maybe they wanted more.

She opened the door as Liz and Alex joined her in the entryway, and found Jim Valenti standing on the porch.

"Sheriff," she stuttered, surprised.

"Maria," Valenti replied stiffly. He glanced behind her and nodded his head in greeting, "Alex, Liz."

For a moment, there was a silence, nobody quite sure what to say. Then Valenti spoke again.

"Max and Isabel are not answering their cell phones."

Liz let her mouth twist into an ironic smile. "They're a little busy right now, Sheriff," she replied.

"The thing is… I need answers," Valenti explained, stepping into the house even though he had not been invited. He walked into the living room, and Maria, Alex, and Liz quickly folded, apprehensive and nervous.

"I'm not really sure we can help you, Sheriff," Alex said softly.

Valenti spun around and stared at Alex, his eyes narrowed. "Can't or won't?" he demanded harshly.

"This isn't just a trivial bit of information," Maria cut in warily, watching her mother's current boy-friend glare at her best friend. "This is people's lives. _Our_ lives."

At that, Valenti allowed himself an ironic smile, his expression mimicking Liz's earlier look. "And you think this doesn't affect my life?" he retorted with a raised eyebrow. "She was _my_ daughter, she lived in _my_ house. Don't you think I have a right to know what is going on?"

"Do you care about her?" Liz asked. "Because if you do… I'm not really sure that you prying is going to help much of anything right now. Certainly not Tess."

"Just tell me what she is," Valenti snarled. "Tell me _what_ my daughter _is_."

"I can't," Liz said, taking a step back from his anger. "I can't tell you anything."

"Does anyone else know, or is it just the seven of you?" Valenti pressed, and now his face had hardened in an ugly fury. "Have you lied to all of your parents as well, or is it just Tess who does that?"

"Sheriff, you don't understand…" Alex started, but Valenti cut him off angrily.

"Of course I don't," he hissed, "because no one will explain it to me." He looked from one teenager to the next, and they all quickly averted their gazes, not wanting to meet his eyes. In frustration, he continued, "If Tess is evil, then she's put my son's life in danger just by being here. If she's good, then she's still my daughter and her life is in danger. Either way, this is my concern!"

"If you have to ask whether or not Tess is evil, maybe you shouldn't get involved in this," Maria retorted. "After all, if you don't even know your own daughter…"

"Maria!" Liz admonished, shocked that her friend would say something like that. She understood where Valenti was coming from, she really did. He had no reason to trust them right now, and his entire world had been turned on its side. But if telling him would put all their lives in even more danger, than she really couldn't risk that.

"What?" Maria asked irritably, her own fear for Michael's safety making her short-tempered. "For God's sake, Liz, he agreed to work with Ms. Topolski, with the FBI! And you think he's trustworthy?"

"You really have been spying on me, haven't you?" Valenti cut in, surprised that they knew about the offer Ms. Topolski had made all those months ago. Then he added viciously, "I never really did follow up on that. Apparently, however, you didn't find that small detail noteworthy."

"Deputy Fisher is really an FBI agent," Alex said suddenly, his gentle voice cutting into the rapidly escalating argument. All eyes turned to him, and he added, "The head of the Special Unit, an organization that has Tess right now, and is probably trying to torture information out of her."

Jim winced slightly at the bluntness of his words and nodded. His mouth was suddenly dry and all the questions that had been flying through his mind were gone now, forgotten in the shock of Alex's pronouncement.

"Alex," Liz reprimanded worriedly, but Alex ignored her. No matter what anyone else wanted to believe, they couldn't keep this a secret forever, and he knew they had a much better chance of convincing Valenti that they were on the right said if they gave him answers now, as opposed to letting his find the answers from someone else.

"He has her at Eagle Rock Military Base."

Valenti blinked. "It's abandoned," he protested automatically, not really thinking over his words.

"No, it isn't," Alex answered calmly. "Max, Michael, and Isabel have gone to rescue her."

"How are three teenagers going to stand up against the FBI?" Valenti demanded, unknowingly repeating the three teenager's concerns.

"No idea," Liz said softly, trying to keep her own fear and apprehension out of her voice. "But Tess is her family. They weren't just going to let her die. Not like that, not at the hands of Pierce and the FBI." She said the words with more venom and more disgust than she thought even possible, but now that she had some idea of what these men and women would do to her friends, she found them all despicable.

"They're dangerous, Sheriff," Alex added. "They killed Ms. Topolski just because she hadn't done exactly what they wanted. They murdered her in cold blood… Maria saw it."

"Deputy Fisher was the one who found the body," Valenti said thoughtfully, the pieces of that particular puzzle falling into place. "He found it because he knew it was there, because he'd planted it… because he wanted me to continue the investigation…"

Maria sighed, her hurt and anger disappearing as the conversation in the room returned to a more manageable volume. She looked at Liz, who was hopeful, and Alex, who was pleading, and knew how much they wanted Valenti to be on their side. They couldn't deal with another enemy, not with Tess in life-threatening danger and the FBI after them and Nasedo out there and unknown evil aliens wanting to kill them all.

"Look," she said at last, tugging at a piece of blonde hair, "I don't like Tess. Never have, probably never will. But… as much as it galls me to have to say this… she is a good person. More importantly, she's your daughter, and she cares about you more than you could possibly know. If you don't want to believe that we're not the evil ones here, that's fine. But can you really believe that Tess is your enemy?"

Valenti ran a hand through his hair, unsure what to say.

* * *

"Stay here," Nasedo ordered tersely, leading the others into the darkness of one of the empty rooms of the base. They'd made it through the security fence and into the compound without any trouble, but getting to Tess was going to be a different story. The heaviest of the protections would be around her, preventing her from escaping. 

"Where are you going?" Max demanded quickly. Nasedo had already explained his plan, but Max didn't like it. He didn't like leaving anything in the control of someone he didn't completely trust, not when all their lives were in danger.

"To look around," Nasedo said simply. He glanced over at Isabel. "Contact the Queen again. Tell her that we are here. Tell her what she needs to do." And he was gone.

"I don't trust him," Isabel muttered.

"Save Tess now, worry about Nasedo later," Max ordered.

Isabel looked annoyed, but she acquiesced and closed her eyes, resting her fingers on the small picture of Tess she had brought with her, and forcing herself to reach out towards the other hybrid's mind.

"_You're asleep?" Isabel said, surprised as she entered the darkness of Tess' dream._

"_Actually, I think I'm unconscious," Tess answered dryly. The images around her kept fading in and out, and she knew she was going to wake up soon. It was hard to see Isabel, hard to focus on what she was saying._

"_Tess, listen to me," Isabel said quickly, noting how Tess' figure flickered before her eyes, threatening to fade away. "We're coming from you. But we need you to be able to use your gifts, okay?"_

"_Can't…"_

"_Yes, you can. The drug will wear off soon. Just make sure Pierce doesn't give you any more," Isabel instructed. Around her, the white room started to appear, and she could see Tess' ragged form huddled on the floor, pale and drawn._

"_Listen," Isabel repeated urgently, "You need to stay awake after this. Okay?"_

"_Mm…" It was getting harder for Tess to think as the wakened world called her back. With her own gifts gone, she couldn't even force herself to stay in her dream any longer than her body would allow._

"_They have a tape of me… using my gifts… I got upset… security camera…" Tess said, forcing the words out. "And…" She looked away as Pierce came into the vision. _

_Isabel could see the way the FBI agent looked down at Tess with complete disgust. She wanted to rush over to her friend and protect her, but she knew it was impossible. She just had to keep Tess focused on the task at hand._

"_And what?" Isabel prompted. "Come on, Tess, what were you going to say?"_

"_Has alien device… wants me to make it work…" Tess whispered. "Don't know… how…"_

"_It's okay," Isabel said. "We're going to take care of everything. But Tess, listen, you can't let him leave. Pierce, he needs to stay in the room with you. Just a few more moments, okay? The drug will wear off soon… Tess, do you understand… Tess?"_

"_Isabel…"_

"_Hold on," Isabel called at Tess' dream finally ended and she was sent back into her own reality. "We're coming, Tess."_

Tess felt the rest of the dream leave her and she was forced into the painful awareness of consciousness. She pushed herself into a sitting position and stared up at Pierce. Keep him talking, keep him stalled. That's what Isabel had wanted.

Easier said than done.

Still, he'd shown her the pictures of Andrew and Jessica to force a response from her, and two could play at that game.

"I'm surprised you didn't show me a picture of your father," she said coolly, giving Pierce a smooth smile.

"Oh?" Her comment clearly caught Pierce by surprise, and he stared at her, confused.

"You know… when you were showing me pictures of all the people you thought I might have had a hand in killing?" Tess pressed.

"What do you know about my father?" Pierce snarled.

"That he was a greedy, ambitious, self-serving bastard who got what was coming to him," Tess answered simply, and Pierce reached across and slapped her. She reeled back, then asked innocently, "Sorry… was I not supposed to say that?"

"You don't know anything," Pierce spat.

"I know that he was murdered by aliens," Tess said. "I know that you were just a boy at the time. It must have been so hard for you to understand why Daddy didn't come home anymore." She paused, then added, "But hey, at least you get revenge, right? That is, after all, what this is really about, isn't it?"

"Your kind murder my father!" Pierce snarled, rage flushed his face a deep crimson.

"Your dear father kidnapped an alien and tortured him for several years in this very room. And for what? Curiosity?" Tess mocked. "Well, you know what they say about curiosity and the cat…"

"I am going to enjoy destroying you and everything you hold dear," Pierce said cruelly.

"Maybe," Tess answered cheerfully. "But not as much as we enjoyed killing everything you held dear."

"You little…" He made another move towards her, and she didn't even bother stepping away from the attack. His open palm connected with her face, causing her lip to split. She wiped the blood of her mouth and continued to stare at him, waiting.

"What's the matter? The Big Bad Agent can't come up with any more words to describe me?"

Pierce turned away from her, angry at her, angry at himself.

But she had to keep him here, keep him talking. Keep him stalled.

Her family was coming.

"Let me guess," Tess continued blithely, "You didn't see your father much when you were younger, and this is all some misguided attempt to finally make him proud of you?" Pierce turned towards her, and she said, "Well, he couldn't have been home that much. He was too busy chasing aliens."

"He was keeping the world safe," Pierce growled. "He was protecting us."

"And it doesn't really matter if you spend time with your family, does it?" Tess mocked. "As long as the world is safe, to hell with the little boy who waits at home for you every night."

Pierce was staring at her, but she wondered if he even saw her anymore. He was clearly thinking of something else, and she felt the tiniest twinge of sorrow for him. His father had been murdered by aliens, was it any wonder he saw them as a threat? After all, if Pierce Sr. was too busy pursuing his prestige and fame to spend time with his son, it was unlikely that Pierce Jr. ever got the full details on his father's job. He probably thought that the aliens had initiated everything by being cold-blooded killers.

It was strange how a few well-chosen words and a casually cruel tone could cause a fully grown, immensely powerful, stoic man to fall apart and revert into nothing more than a little boy.

Would she resort to violence and hatred if someone killed her family? She didn't know, but she knew how easy it was to lose control of everything when someone you love is in danger.

"My father was twice the man you'll ever be," Pierce said coldly.

"Well, obviously," Tess replied. "Seeing as I am female and all that…"

Pierce had to restrain himself from rolling his eyes.

"I didn't kill Andrew and Jessica. I had nothing to do with their deaths. I loved them, and they were murdered, and it _hurt_," Tess said quietly, painfully. "I know what it is like to lose a parent to something you can't control."

Pierce scoffed at her. "Spare me the sob story, Ms. Harding, I don't care for it much."

"Pity," Tess drawled, "because I think it illustrates an interesting difference between the two of us. You suffer tragedy, and you turn into a cruel, twisted, murderer. I suffer tragedy, and I don't."

"You and your kind are the reason my father and several of his colleagues never got to see their children graduate high school," Pierce replied. "It is creatures like you that pose the greatest threat to my country, and I _will_ stop you."

"You can call it protection and pretend it's noble, but we both know this is about revenge," Tess answered. "You can't let go of petty grievances from your past, can you? You're pathetic."

"You're disgusting," Pierce said simply.

Tess' features fell into a cruel smirk as she answered, "And you're just a contemptible boy who _still_ can't get over the fact that his Daddy didn't have time for him when he was little."

* * *

Isabel opened her eyes to see Max and Michael standing above her, waiting expectantly. "I got through," she said. "I think she understood what I was saying…" 

"You think?" Michael asked, confused at the comment. "What do you mean?"

"She's out of it," Isabel answered slowly, not wanting to go into detail. It wouldn't do to worry anyone with a report of just how badly hurt Tess was. But they were running out of time.

As if on cue, Nasedo reappeared.

"Well?" he asked.

"She knows the plan," Isabel reported. "Or, at least as much of it as I could convey. She said that the security cameras have a recording of her using her gifts and that Pierce wants her to activate some alien device that she doesn't recognize."

Nasedo frowned. "That will complicate things," he said thoughtfully. "They will have made a backup of the security tapes, but we can still destroy the originals and the cameras. It will have to be at the very end, however, because we can't risk alerting them to our presence."

"What did you find when you looked around?" Max asked, drawing the conversation back to Nasedo's previous absence.

"Everything is as I thought it would be," Nasedo replied. "Are you ready?"

Michael and Isabel looked at Max. They were not ready, not ready at all. Not ready to go up against the FBI, not ready to face Pierce. Not ready to cross the line they would never be able to go back over. But…

Max looked at his sister and his best friend. He knew of their worries, he knew of their fears. He knew of everything they were thinking about, everything that could go wrong.

"They've hunted us," he said softly, "and they've spied on us. They've manipulated us and everyone around us. They've put us in danger, they're irreversibly changed our lives, and up until now we've let them. We've done nothing because we didn't think we could fight them face-to-face. But they took Maria, and then they took Tess. They attacked our family, and God only knows what they are doing to her even as we speak. I'm not hiding anymore. I'm not letting them get away with the destruction and pain they've caused. It ends here and now."

Michael and Isabel slowly nodded.

"Yes," Max said, turning to Nasedo again. "We're ready."

* * *

Next Chapter: Escape 

Due: Sun 10/21


	96. Escape

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: I wasn't really pleased with this chapter. I guess I'm not particularly good at action scenes. Anyway, I promise the next one will be better.

* * *

Chapter Ninety-Five: Escape

Nasedo gestured for the three hybrids to remain hidden as the door to their hiding place swung open and an agent stepped in. In one swift move, Nasedo was a this side, pressing his hand against the FBI agent's chest before the man even had a chance to call out in surprise or shock. A moment later, the agent crumpled to the ground, a silver handprint glowing from beneath the folds of his partially torn shirt.

"What did you…?" Isabel gasped, horrified. She turned away, averting her eyes from the awful sight, and Nasedo curled his lip at her. He shape-shifted, taking the form of the dead agent and nodding to the others.

"Let's go."

Max stared at the agent who Nasedo had so callously killed and felt a shiver run up and down his spine. They'd known all along that he was a killer, but to actually see it…

"Do you want to stay here and die?" Nasedo snapped when he realized they were not following him. "It's them or you, Princess," he said coldly, eyes focusing on Isabel. "Who do you want to win this?"

Max reached out and took Isabel's hand, wrapping his fingers tightly around her own. Giving her a reassuring smile, he lead the small group out of the room and into the hallway.

"This has to go like clockwork," Nasedo murmured, giving a few last minute instructions. "Do you understand how essential it is that we all stay exactly on schedule?"

"Yes," Max answered. The hallway was empty, but for how long? He looked around, half-expecting an agent to come out of nowhere and attack them. The entire place was giving him the creeps. It was almost completely empty, save for the one wing with the white room in it, and even the slightest sound echoed off the walls.

"Good," Nasedo said. "Then let's go."

Max and Isabel broke off from the group, ducking down one hallway and turning a corner. Scurrying quickly across the open space, they paused outside a door that lead to the control room. In the corner of the ceiling, a security camera scanned the entire hallway. Max quickly pulled Isabel backwards, away from the camera.

"They're going to see us if we enter," Isabel whispered, in her eyes fixed on the camera.

Max nodded. Glancing at his watch, he made a quick decision. They had three minutes until this entire plan needed to be put into motion, and in those three minutes they needed to get into position. Waving his hand over his clothing, he manipulated it until it resembled the same dark black suit that all the agents wore. Isabel, following his example, did the same.

"I'm going to fry the security sensors on the door. Keep you head down when you walk through, and maybe they won't pick us up in the cameras. At least not right away."

Isabel swallowed nervously and agreed.

Max walked towards the thumb-print reading pad near the sliding metal door and placed his hand on it. Keeping his head down and turning his body so that is just prevented the security camera from recording what his hand was doing, he let out the tiniest pulse of energy, unlocking the door. It slid open, and he walked calmly through.

Isabel followed, keeping her eyes on the floor, holding her breath.

As the door slid shut behind them, Max said hurriedly, "Alright, we need to move. Two minutes and counting."

They walked along the hallway, glancing back and forth. Several doors opened into abounded rooms, but they could hear voices and footsteps now; more people used this part of the base. Ducking into one of the closest rooms, they took a moment to catch their breath.

A window on the opposite wall looked out into the desert. The sun was slowly setting.

"Mom and Dad are going to wonder where we are," Isabel said quietly. "And we're already in trouble with them as it is. We're going to be grounded until we're forty."

"At this point," Max replied, "I just want to live to be forty."

Isabel didn't answer. She turned her attention back towards the door, her mind still running over all the details of the plan. She and the others had done their best to quickly memorize a detailed map of the base, and she knew that where they were standing was only a few yards away from the control room that would hold all the security camera tapes, the feeds, and anything else they managed to get from Tess… like her blood. The white room, with Tess herself, was at the opposite end of the wing, far away from all this. Probably, she mused, as a security procedure. Keep the dangerous aliens away from the evidence.

"One minute," Max announced. He and Isabel exchanged a brief look. "Ready?"

Isabel nodded.

* * *

"This is going to be more difficult and more dangerous than what the King and the Princess are doing," Nasedo said to Michael as they stood in the darkened corner of the hallway, across from the door that would ultimately lead them to the white room. "The security around here is stronger than anything you could possibly imagine."

"So you say," Michael said shortly, unwilling to completely trust anything this shape-shifter decided to tell them.

"The doors will not be manipulated by your gifts, neither will the keypads open with electricity the way the ones near the control room do," Nasedo continued, ignoring Michael's skepticism. "I can activate the pads with my fingerprints as they now mimic the agent I killed, but I can't pass through the door."

"Remind me again why that is?" Michael questioned, not entirely sure he wanted to be the one to walk directly into the heart of the enemy's territory. Especially when an ally he didn't completely trust refused to come with him.

"The x-ray capabilities of the door will automatically look over your bone structure. As a shape-shifter, mine will hardly pass the test of normal human skeleton. Yours, however, will, so you must be the one to enter." Nasedo, sensing Michael's unease, said, "I'll be here, waiting. As soon as the King is able to disconnect the electricity to this entire complex, I can join you and free the Queen."

Michael nodded, still reluctant, but recognizing that they didn't have much of a choice.

Nasedo looked at his watch. "It's time." He stepped into the hallway and walked bravely to the door, glancing up at the security camera as he did so. Pressing his fingers against the thumbprint pad, he glanced up as the door slid open.

Michael took a deep breath and joined him beside the now-open door.

"Remember," Nasedo instructed, "there will be other agents there. You cannot do anything until the power goes out, so you need to just stay in position. Don't look suspicious. Don't call attention to yourself." His eyes bored into Michael's, and the younger alien blinked and looked away.

"I know," Michael said, and he walked through the door into enemy territory.

* * *

"Show me how to use this," Pierce snapped irritably, shoving the back device at Tess. His eerily polite manner was gone now, rattled by Tess' earlier conversation with him. Memories of his father filled the space between them, leaving him unsettled and unnerved.

The drug had finally worn off. The blonde hybrid was still having some difficult controlling her gifts, most likely due to the exhaustion and pain her body was currently struggling against. But she could sense a flicker of emotions coming from her captor, and she could feel the nearness of the other aliens, somewhere close by.

"Why do you want to know?" Tess asked, holding the device in her hand. How much longer was she going to have to stall him? She couldn't do this indefinitely.

"Do you think I'm a fool? I know this is important somehow. It does something. Is it a weapon? A communicator? A battery?" Pierce pressed, watching as Tess ran her hand over the smooth black metal.

"Does it matter? You're human, you can't use it," Tess shot back, hoping her half-clues and hints would prevent him from giving up quite yet. She just had to keep him here, keep him busy, until…

And then she felt Isabel in her head, reaching out towards her, and relished in the fact that she could use her own gifts to reach back.

_Isabel?_

_We're here._

_He wants me to activate the alien device._

_Mind-warp him into thinking it is doing something. Doesn't matter what. Just make sure that he can see nothing but that. Hold him for as long as you can, Tess._

_Now?_

_Now._

She stared at the device, then up at Pierce. "Fine," she said bitterly. "You want to see how it works?" Closing her eyes, she concentrated on his mind, pushing images into it until all he could see was what she was showing him.

He saw the device glowing in her hand, the small light bulbs flashing in a strange pattern. A hum emitted from it, starting and stopping with sudden spurts of energy. She had no idea what she was doing or what the device actually did when it was activated, but these fake images held Pierce's attention, and that was all that mattered.

"What is it?" Pierce asked in growing fascination.

Still struggling to hold the mind-warp, Tess forced him to hear her answer, "It's a communicator. It's part of the ship. It's how we kept in touch with the mother planet, before the crash." She was making this up as well, but Pierce was buying it. Keeping her eyes tightly shut in order to prevent any outside influences from breaking her concentration, she still couldn't help but wonder how much longer she needed to keep this up.

Her strength was draining.

* * *

"Here," Isabel said, gesturing to the far wall. "The power circuit."

Max walked quickly over to the fuse box and pulled the metal cover open, revealing the rows of fuses. Several of them were labeled, but a few other were blank. He frowned and turned to Isabel, "It controls the doors, the lights, and the cameras. But not the computers, the security fences, main control panels in the white room. They must run on their own power source."

"It doesn't matter," Isabel said. "Just blow these fuses. That will be enough. We can worry about everything else later."

Max pressed his hand against all the fuses and nodded to her. "Ready?"

* * *

Michael walked through the hallways, nodding to two of the agents he passed. His heart was beating frantically in his chest, and he couldn't help but feel as though every single person was looking at him, sizing him up, watching his every move.

Taking a calm breath, he glanced at his watch. Seventeen seconds. He glanced up at the lights.

"You'd better be ready, Max," he muttered under his breath.

Thirteen seconds. The hallway was empty now, but in front of him were two doors, one that lead to the control room where Nasedo said that several members of the Special Unit would watch whatever was happening in the white-room, and another door that lead through a string of various security settings into the white room itself.

Seven seconds.

Beyond the white room was the inner core of the base, the place were all power sources were routed. The backup generators kept the place running smoothly even when desert storms knocked out the entire power grid.

Michael gave an ironic smile. Occasionally, all the homes in Roswell and the surrounding towns would lose their power for a few days during a particularly bad storm, but at least the FBI was still able to torture people through the blackout. Heaven forbid they have to stop that.

Two seconds.

He took a deep breath and walked straight to the door that lead to the control room. And he pushed it open.

* * *

The lights flickered and died. Max stepped away from the fuse box and nodded at Isabel. "Alright." He pointed to the far door. "The control room. Destroy anything you can find that incriminates us. Go."

She turned and raced away.

* * *

"What the…?"

Michael glanced around the room as the lights went out and everything was plunged into darkness. In front of him were two men sitting on chairs, legs up on the table in front of them. The front wall was entirely window, looking into the bright white of a room he never wanted to see. The lights of the room were still working, attached to the backup generator.

But Pierce stood, staring at Tess as she sat on the floor, eyes tightly shut, crumpled slightly over herself.

"What the hell happened to the lights?" the first agent snapped irritably.

"Fuse box blew," Michael said, lowering his voice and trying to sound as guff as possible. Despite the light still coming through the window into the white room, it was hard to see, and both agents turned to squint at him. "You want to check it out?" he instructed, nodding towards the closer agent.

"Who gave you the right to be in charge?" the first agent snapped back.

Michael managed to fit disdain and nonchalance into his tone as he replied, "You want to tell Pierce that you refused to check out a power failure?"

The first agent swore under his breath, but obliged and left the room. Michael walked slowly over to the other agent and punched him square in the face before he had any chance to react. He slumped over, unconscious, nose broken.

Then Michael turned to the window. Holding out his hand, he smashed the glass, causing it to fly out into the room. But instead of letting it shatter in every direction, he held it steady and slowly set it down on the ground so that the thousands of dagger-sharp fragments of glass wouldn't hurt Tess or himself. Then he climbed through the broken window and knelt down at Tess' side.

She was completely oblivious to his presence, caught up in the power of her mind-warp. Her skin was pale and had a gray tinge. There were dark circles under her eyes and bruises on her cheek and arms. Her lip was split and her hair was matted with sweat.

He scooped her up in his arms at the same time the door across from him flung open and Nasedo raced into the room.

"Get her out of here," Nasedo said quickly, beckoning for Michael to precede him out of the room.

"No!" Michael cried, catching Nasedo's arm as he moved towards Pierce. "We don't have time for revenge. Let him go. We can come back later."

Nasedo looked as though he was about to argue, but a quick glance at the girl in Michael's arms, and he followed Michael from the room.

* * *

Isabel slammed her hand against the last of the computers in the control room, watching as it shattered. There would be back up files somewhere, and more tapes, but she gotten the last of Tess' blood and reports of x-rays and MRIs.

Max poked his head in the room. "Ready?"

"Did you get rid of the security cameras?" Isabel asked, following Max from the room.

"Yes, and the powers still out of the electric fence. Come on," Max replied, catching Isabel's arm and pulling her through the hallways.

* * *

Tess collapsed completely in Michael's arm, falling into unconsciousness just as Max and Isabel tumbled into the hallway. Max's entire expression flooded with relief as he caught sight of Tess, but the relief was short lived as two agents appeared behind them, guns in hand.

Nasedo spun around, raising his hand and redirecting the bullets that flew towards them. "Get out of here!" he spat at Max. "I'll hold them off. Go!"

The three hybrids didn't need telling twice. They turned and ran, leaving Nasedo behind, racing to get Tess to safety while she was still alive.

* * *

The last of the mind-warp faded and Pierce found himself alone in the middle of the white room, with the alien subject and the black device gone, and the mirror next to him shattered against the floor.

He drew his gun and started towards the door.

* * *

Nasedo raced past the two dead agents, relying on his memory of the blueprints of this place to find what he was looking for. The echo of footsteps behind him alerted him to the presence of others, but he ignored it, moving through the labyrinth deeper and deeper.

The door in front of him loomed wide and he blasted it open with everything he had, forcing the twisted, destroyed metal aside. Inside, the backup generators, central power control, and fuse circuits hummed with intense energy.

A lot of energy concentrated in a single room.

Made it all that much easier to blow the place to smithereens.

Nasedo concentrated…

* * *

At the edge of the compound, only a few steps away from the now-defunct electric gate, Max halted, spinning around as Pierce appeared, gun pointed directly at them.

"Did you really think you could get away from us that easily?" he spat, advancing on them. Both Isabel and Max raised their hands, prepared to attack, but the sharp crack of a gunshot froze them, and then, uncomprehendingly, Pierce had dropped his gun and lifted his hand to his shoulder were blood started spilling out through his clenched fingers.

"_Get your filthy hands away from my daughter_!"

Valenti appeared behind Pierce, climbing through the hole in the fence. Beyond him, Liz, and Maria were waiting, watching the entire scene with horrified eyes.

"You…" Pierce coughed, reaching for his gun.

"Come on! Go, now!" Valenti ordered harshly, snatching Tess from Michael's arms and leading the others away. Pierce fired shots at their retreating backs, and Max barely managed to lift his hand and shove away the bullets in time.

"What…?" Michael snapped angrily as he followed Valenti.

"It's okay, we can trust him," Maria said, grabbing Michael and dragging him away from the others. "We need to go, okay, before…" She gestured behind her at Pierce.

"Max, come on," Liz ordered, pulling him into the car behind her.

"Tess…" Max muttered, looking over his shoulder as Valenti put Tess carefully in the back of her car. "I need to heal…"

"Max, listen to me, we need to split up. Valenti will make sure that Tess is okay until…" She didn't finish the sentence. The FBI were pouring out of the base behind them, guns drawn, as Pierce pulled himself to his feet.

"Liz, Maria, meet us where we agreed," Valenti yelled at the two girls as Isabel climbed into his truck. Michael jumped into Maria's car and Max let himself fall into the passenger side of Liz's.

The explosion ripped through the air, the base seemed to fall outward, imploding on itself. A chain of reaction, explosions leading outwards, room after room after room, bright flashes of white bursting into the night sky.

The three cars pulled away from the burning building, disappearing into the night.

* * *

Next Chapter: Lions and Tigers and Bears (oh, my!)

Due:Sun 10/29


	97. Lions and Tigers and Bears oh, my!

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Alright, so I think this chapter turned out better than the last one. Despite the slightly comic title, it is still a very dramatic and action-filled chapter.

* * *

Chapter Ninety-Six: Lions and Tigers and Bears (oh my!)

Max twisted around in his seat and watched as the military base faded into the background. He could hear the distant whine of sirens, getting closer and closer with every passing minute, as Liz frantically steered the car along the dirt road. They'd separated from the others a while ago, and Max couldn't quiet understand what had happened. How had Liz and Maria gotten here, and what was Valenti doing?

"Valenti came to see us after you guys left," Liz said softly, sensing Max's confusion. Her eyes were fixed on the dark road. She was forced to squint to pick out the shapes of rocks and bushes that reached out into the road. "He was angry and scared and… He wouldn't go away. We had to tell him something. We didn't tell him everything, but he knew that Tess was in danger and he wanted to help…"

Max leaned back in the seat. "Do we trust him?" he asked, resting his eyes for a moment.

"I trust that he loves Tess," Liz replied. "He came up with this plan to come and get you guys. They'll have trouble finding us since we've split up now, but we're going to meet up again at an old abandoned mind that Valenti knows about."

"Okay…" Max opened his eyes and frowned suddenly, noting the one person who had remained absent from this new development. "Where's Alex?"

"He's in Roswell, covering for us." Liz slanted a look at Max. "Are you guys… okay?"

"We're alive," Max said, but wondered idly if that was really true. Were they all alive? After all, he hadn't seen Nasedo leave the base before it exploded. Was it possible that they'd lost him?

Strangely, the idea of Nasedo's possible death struck a chord with Max, and he felt himself involuntarily grieving for the shape-shifter. He averted his head so that Liz would not see his reaction, and stared out the window, lost in thought. He didn't like Nasedo, he didn't trust Nasedo, but he didn't want the other alien to die.

The sirens were getting closer. Liz chanced a quick glance in her rearview mirror, and picked up the flashes of moonlight reflecting off metal in the trees behind her. She struggled not to let her face betray her fear, but her heart was hammering wildly as the panic started to set in.

Then there was the sound of a shot, the shattering of glass as a bullet hit their back windshield, and Liz screamed. Slamming on the break, the brunette turned to Max and cried, "Come on, get out of the car! Hurry, hurry."

She and Max scrambled from the car and began racing through the woods. The ground sloped away below them, turning into a steep hill that plummeted down to a gravel road below. Holding tightly to each other, the two made their way along the dirt, glancing periodically behind them when they heard the sound of heavy footsteps, of shouts.

"Come on, come on," Liz kept muttering as they ran out into the middle of the road. From behind them, they could see the blinding lights of oncoming cars. In front, the road turned into a bridge that ran over a rushing river below. On the other side of the bridge, racing towards them, were three agents, guns drawn.

Max seized Liz's hand and pulled her to the bridge. They climbed unsteadily onto the rail of the bridge, staring down at the river below. The sharp crack of gunfire filled the air, and Max pulled Liz protectively next to him as the bullets flew by.

He leaned over and kissed Liz, whispering hurried, "I love you." Then interlocking his fingers tightly with hers, they two of them turned to face the river below, and jumped.

* * *

"We should have stayed with Max," Isabel protested as Valenti drove the car through the dimly lit streets. They had lost the FBI agents tailing them a few minutes ago, and the Sherriff had slowed down the car, knowing that they were safe for now. 

He looked back at Isabel. She was sitting in the back seat, her face pale and streaked with tears. She was looking at him, however. Her eyes were fixed on Tess, who was slumped against the door in the seat next to her, still unconscious.

"We're safer this way," Valenti said. "It's better if we split up."

Isabel shook her head. "He could have helped Tess," she whispered. She knew, even as she said the words, that they weren't true. If they had stopped to wait for Max to heal Tess, the FBI would have caught them before they could escape. The most important thing was getting out of there, and although Tess was probably in considerable pain, she wasn't in any danger of dying. They could wait until they caught up with Max again.

But Valenti frowned, catching Isabel's words. "How could he have helped her?" he asked, pressing for details.

Isabel didn't answer. She didn't know how much the others had told Valenti, and she wasn't about to spill any secrets. Instead, she took Tess' hand in her own and said softly, firmly, "Hang in there, Tess. Okay? We're going to be safe soon."

"What caused the base to explode?" Valenti asked, trying a different tact. He'd seen the eruption, he knew that it wasn't something that just normally happened. Someone had to have made it explode like that, but who? And how?

"I don't know," Isabel said stonily. It wasn't a lie, she didn't know exactly what had happened. But she had a pretty good guess, and Nasedo's continued absence only served to make her suspicions stronger.

"Isabel…"

"Don't," Isabel said sharply.

"We're on the same side," Valenti retorted, starting to get angry. "I'm trying to help you, but I can't do it if you won't trust me."

Isabel lifted her eyes towards him, and met his gaze as he looked back at her through the rearview mirror. "If you really want to help us,_you_ should start trusting _us_. And stop asking questions."

For a moment, Valenti didn't answer. He trained his gaze to the road, watching as the headlights skimmed over the ground. He could hear Tess' steady breathing filling the empty silence of the car, and although he wasn't looking at her, he knew that Isabel was still watching him.

"Trust works both ways," he said at last. "I'm helping you now, but I can't do it indefinitely. Sooner or later, you're going to need to meet me half-way."

Isabel swallowed and looked down at Tess. "Where are we going?" she asked, changing the subject. She couldn't dwell on everything they had done to thwart Valenti's investigation, everything they had done to manipulate him, or she would start feeling guilty again.

"Some place safe," Valenti answered wearily. "Liz and Maria know the way. The others will meet us there."

* * *

Kyle collapsed onto the sofa, a phone clutched in one hand, and stared blankly at the window opposite him. His dad and his sister had both somehow mysteriously disappeared, and no one seemed to know where they were. He had called both cell phones, but there had been no answer. He'd called Amy DeLuca, who informed him that she hadn't seen his father, and that she didn't know where her own daughter was. He'd called over to Isabel, hoping that Tess was there, but Mrs. Evans had said that, not only was Tess not there, but Isabel and Max were gone as well. On a whim, he'd called the Parkers, but Liz was gone. 

Where was everyone?

Somehow, he knew that wherever his father and Tess were, the others would be there as well. Something was happening, and he had no idea what it was. All he knew was that his gut instinct was telling him that it was important, and that everyone's lives were about to change.

He picked up the phone and dialed another number.

"Hello?" the voice at the other end of the line answered.

"It's Kyle," he said firmly, "Kyle Valenti. Where's my family, Whitman?"

"Wh-what?" Alex Whitman stuttered, clearly surprised by the question. "How would I know?"

"Because my bet is that, wherever my Dad and Tess are, your friends are with them," Kyle answered coldly. Fear and worry were now beginning to plague him, and he couldn't explain away his concern as paranoia. Something was going on, and he was going to get the answers.

"Liz and Maria are over here," Alex answered, but his voice sounded automatic.

"Let me talk to them," Kyle said shrewdly, calling Alex on his bluff.

"They're busy," Alex replied shortly. "I can have them call you in a little bit."

"Damn it, Alex! What the hell is going on?" Kyle hissed, pressing the phone tightly against his ear. "I haven't seen either of them all day, and it's getting late. Are they in danger? Did something happen?" He closed his eyes, thousands of horrible scenarios running through his mind, all of which involved the authorities finding his father and Tess, bodies mangled, lying in the middle of the desert.

"I don't know, Kyle. I don't know anything about your father or sister. In case you've forgotten, I don't tend to run in the same circles as Tess."

Kyle sighed and shook his head. "I swear to God, Alex, if you know something that you won't tell my and my family gets hurt…" He trailed off, leaving the threat hanging ominously between them, then hung up the phone.

For a moment, he did nothing. Then he got up and walked towards Tess' bedroom. Standing in front of the door, he drew a deep breath, then slowly pushed it open. The room was, as usual, neat and orderly. The closet was closed, all the drawers of the desk and the dresser shut, and the bed made. It was a stark contrast to Kyle's room, which was generally overflowing with unfolded laundry and scattered papers.

He walked over to her desk, unable to shake the feeling that he was somehow committing an unspeakable crime. He was so well trained not to invade her privacy that the very thought of standing unwelcome in her room was almost sacrilegious. But he had done it once or twice before, when the situation desperately called for answers. And if ever there was a time that he felt as though he needed to know what was going on, it was now.

He could almost picture Tess in his head, laughing at his paranoid thoughts, and telling him that the entire world didn't revolve around him. It was bizarre and strange and completely irrational for him to feel this fear. And yet it was still there, still whispering horrible thoughts into his ear.

Then he noticed something odd. A closed book was lying on her bed, instead of on the bookshelf where she always put them. A bottle of perfume was lying on its side on her desk. The cashmere sweater she sometimes wore at night was draped over the back of the chair, but Tess always kept it neatly folded in her dresser.

Unbidden, the thought arose in his mind that whatever had happened, Tess had left in a rush.

There was a pad of paper on the desk. The top page was covered in sketches, all of the same random shape. Four ovals around four spirals, and interlocked with an x.

What was going on?

* * *

"Max and Liz aren't here yet," Maria announced as she rushed towards Valenti. He'd parked the car next to the abandoned mine and climbed out, Isabel following behind him. He had Tess in his arms, but she was still unconscious, her head leaning against his shoulder. 

Valenti accepted this, tiny lines of worry creasing his face. "They should be here by now," he said, trying to keep the fear from his voice. "They were supposed to take the most direct route."

Michael hovered behind Maria, clearly bewildered by everything that had happened. Maria had explained as much as she could, but he needed to talk to Valenti before he could truly believe that the Sheriff was on their side.

Isabel walked swiftly over to Michael and gave him a brief hug. Then she stepped back and looked around the place. The mine resembled more of a junkyard now, with several overturned mining vehicles scattered over the grass. The property was enclosed by a rusted gate, and to one side sat a small cottage-like structure that might have been a store. Behind that was a larger building, something that resembled a one-story warehouse. A few of the windows were broken.

"How is she?"

Isabel turned to see Maria nodding towards Tess, asking about the petite alien's wellbeing.

The Sherriff looked down at his daughter and said firmly, "She'll be okay." But the words were more to reassure himself than to convince anyone else. He stepped past Maria and started walking towards the warehouse, still holding Tess protectively.

Michael followed, not wanting to leave Tess alone with someone who had once been there enemy. After a moment's hesitation, Maria and Isabel trailed after Michael.

The inside of the warehouse was dark, with only the moonlight streaming in through the windows to cast any light. But once his eyes had adjusted to the light, Michael watched as Valenti carefully laid Tess on the floor, placing a rolled up sweater under her head as a pillow.

"What now?" Maria breathed.

"We need to find Max," Isabel said instantly. "We can't do anything without him."

"I'm going to backtrack along the way he and Liz were supposed to come," Valenti announced. "I'll see if I can find them that way. You three stay here with Tess."

"No," Michael objected. "I'm coming with you."

Valenti looked like he was about to protest, but then shrugged. "Fine," he said. With a quick look at Maria, he added, "You should call Alex, let him know that he's going to need to cover for you for the entire night." As he said these words, he thought of Kyle, and wondered what his son would think when he realized that they weren't coming home tonight. Did he know what was going on? Was he in this also, had Tess confided in him? Or was he on the outside?

Maria chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully and asked, "When should I tell Alex we're going to be back?"

"I don't know," Valenti answered heavily. Turning to Isabel, he questioned, "Does Kyle know anything?"

Silently, Isabel shook her head. Kyle, also, hadn't been trusted with these details, and yet somehow they'd seen fit to include Liz, Maria, and Alex. Not their families, not their parents or siblings, but classmates.

It was getting more problematic by the moment. How were they supposed to cover for themselves, come up with stories to tell their families, and stop the FBI once and for all?

"Come on, Michael," Valenti ordered tersely, too tired at this point to delve any deeper into the dilemma in which the teenagers had so well managed to entangle themselves. "We need to find Max and Liz."

After the two had left the warehouse, Isabel looked over at Maria and asked pointedly, "Was it a good idea to bring Valenti into this?"

"We didn't have much of a choice," Maria replied heavily. "He came to my house, and he wasn't leaving without answers." She hesitated, giving Isabel a guilty look, pleading with the other girl to understand that they had been forced to do this, that she hadn't wanted to betray the secret. "Anyway, we didn't tell him everything. We didn't tell him what you guys are."

"Yeah…" Isabel ran a hand through her hair, starting to pace back and forth across the cement floor. Around her, tiny dust motes, illuminated by the moonlight cascading through the broken windows, floated about, disturbed her movements. "He didn't press as hard as I thought he would. I mean, he did talk about trust, but he didn't…" She gave Maria a confused look. "I thought he would have pushed more…"

"He doesn't need to," Maria said softly, turning her attention to Tess. "He just has to wait."

"What?"

Maria looked back at Isabel. "Come on, you know he only has to wait until Tess is awake. She'll tell him what he wants to know."

"Tess? Tess never wanted to tell Valenti. She always thought it was a bad idea to trust outside people," Isabel pointed out. Tess was the one who had insisted on erasing Mr. and Mrs. Evans' memories after Isabel had gotten sick. Tess was the one who kept wanting to keep Liz, Maria, and Alex out of it.

"Tess always wanted to tell him," Maria countered, "she just never thought it was safe. She will now."

"Will she?" Isabel wondered. She really had no idea how Tess would react to these new developments. She had no idea how any of them would react, once they had a moment to stop and reflect on everything that had happened.

"Worry about Valenti later," Maria answered wearily. "Right now, I think we need to focus more on staying alive."

* * *

"I don't trust you," Michael said bluntly as Valenti carefully drove along the road. 

"Yeah, I'm getting that," Valenti replied, his tone sarcastic. He didn't bother looking at Michael, who he knew was scowling back at him. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed to the road and the woods around them, searching for any sign of Max and Liz.

"If you hurt any of them…" Michael started angrily, but Valenti cut him off.

"Spare me the threats. I'm not interested in your melodramatics," the Sheriff said calmly. This time he did look over at Michael, his eyes narrowed. "I get that you're not big on trusting people, but I'm not the enemy."

Michael gave a snort of disbelief. "You were when you wanted to work the FBI. And look what the FBI did to Tess." He folded his arms over his chest, defiantly glowering at Valenti. "You hurt any of us, I'll kill you."

Valenti sighed. "Tess is _my_ daughter, Michael. You can trust me, or you can not. But Tess _is_ my daughter and if you think I am just going to back off while she's in danger, you're kidding yourself."

* * *

Max struggled onto the river bank, pulling Liz out behind him. They were drenched, their clothes sticking to their skin. Liz's hair was plastered to her face, and she was pale in the moonlight, her eyes wide with fear. 

But they were both still alive.

"Where are we?" Liz asked, leaning against Max as she squinted through the dim light. There were trees around them, and the river curved away, swerving into the distant desert. About twenty feet above them, on the other side of the river, was a road.

"Um…" Max looked around, then pointed to the road. "That intersects with the road we were on before. I saw it diverging while we were in the water." He wrapped his arm around Liz. "We can't go back that way, the FBI are probably still up there."

"They'll come down to the river eventually," Liz replied, worried. She scanned the area around them for any signs of unwelcome company, but they appeared to be alone. "We were supposed to meet Valenti at an old mine," she added, tilting her head towards Max. "But I don't know how to find it from here."

"Okay…" Max chewed his lip thoughtfully, weighing his options. He had no way of knowing if the others were okay, although if something truly horrible had happened to them, he knew he would feel it. So assuming that Tess, Isabel, and Michael were still alive, it would be imperative to find them as soon as possible. Everything else could be solved later.

"I think if we go back to the place the road diverged I could lead us to it, though," Liz offered.

Max sat down on the bank of the river. "Alright. Just give me a minute," he requested. Closing his eyes, he concentrated all his energy on the other three. For a moment, he felt nothing but emptiness. His gifts were control over the body, not the mind, and that always made it more difficult for him to sense the others. But after a few more moments of trying, he felt a tiny flicker of something. It meant the others were alive.

That would have to be enough for now.

He stood up and slipped his hand into Liz's. The two of them started walking slowly along the river bank, listening to the wind through the trees, the lapping of the water, the slow inhales and exhales of their breath. With the moon casting gentle light down on them and the air cool with a light breeze, Liz reflected that it would have been romantic, had they not been scared for their lives and on the run from the FBI.

"We were worried about you," Liz said finally, breaking the silence. "I didn't… I didn't know how you were going to get out of the base…" She didn't want to imply that she did not have faith in Max's abilities, but she had been terrified. He may be the reincarnation of an alien king, but he didn't have enough control or enough power to go up against the entire FBI.

"Nasedo helped us," Max admitted.

Liz looked at him sharply. "Are you sure it is wise to trust him?"

Max shook his head slowly. "No," he said softly, feeling a strange emotion tugging at him, "but I'm not sure he's still alive." Was it regret? Pity? Grief?

"What do you mean?" Liz asked, and she dreaded the worse.

"They were attacking us, and Nasedo held them off while we escaped," Max explained in a whisper. "I think he did something to make the base explode. I don't know if he's… I don't know."

Liz gave his hand a squeeze. "I guess will find out later," she murmured. "He might have gotten out in time, or maybe he knew how to protect himself…" She could see from the look in Max's eyes that he didn't want the shape-shifter to be dead, and although she did not understand why he would feel this attachment to their enemy, she still wanted to offer any reassurances she could.

"Maybe," Max said with a shrug.

Suddenly, Liz froze, staring up at the road. She could hear the roar of an engine, getting closer. Pulling Max backwards into the protective shadow of the trees, she demanded, "Is it coming towards us?"

Max nodded, seeing headlights sweep into view. There were three cars, two unmarked black Sedans and a larger truck. He and Liz ducked down, hiding in the underbrush, holding their breath. The cars on the road slowed down, and then finally stopped, and several agents piled out of them.

Max held a finger to his lips, and they listened to the distant voices. Words and phrases floated to them on the wind.

"… off the bridge…"

"…down there somewhere?"

"…need to look harder… Pierce… not happy…escape."

"Go down and… if you find anything."

Two of them men started climbing down the trail that lead from the road to the other side of the river. The rest piled back into the truck and one of the cars and continued driving.

Once the car lights disappeared into the distance and it was almost pitch-black again, Max turned his attention to the two agents on the opposite bank. "Liz," he instructed grimly, "when I say run… run."

"What are you going to do?" Liz asked, still holding his hand tightly. He tugged loose from her grip and gave her a little smile, but it did nothing to assuage her fears, and she pressed, "Max?"

"Trust me," Max answered, and slowly stood up, stepping into the moonlight.

"Hey, guys!" Max called out, and the two agents turned to look at him. "Looking for someone?" Both agents raised their guns, but Max was faster, and waving his hand, he managed to cause the guns to fly out of their grasps and into the river. It was a gift he had never had great control over, Michael being the one with better telekinetic abilities. He accidentally caused one of the agents to stumble through the air as well, following down the sloping bank and into the mud.

Another agent reached for his cell phone, but Max waved his hand again, this time at the cliff rising above them, and a hail of small rocks and dirt came cascading down on the men.

"Run!" Max ordered, and he and Liz turned and sprinted away, crashing through the dark. Behind them, the men struggled to pull themselves out of the dirt and dust and rocks. By the time they had escaped the rubble of the miniature avalanche Max had caused, their two targets had disappeared.

* * *

Pierce pulled at the bandaging around his shoulder, making sure it was tightly in place. Deciding that his bullet wound was safely wrapped, he turned to the two men in front of him. 

"Sheriff Valenti may think he can protect our targets, but he can't. The other agents are out there searching for them right now."

Agent Willis, the only one who had worked on this case long enough to feel comfortable asking questions, said curiously, "And if our subjects evade capture?"

Pierce gave a cold smirk. "Sooner or later, they're going to realize that they've left some people behind in Roswell. They're going to want to return, and when they do…" He trailed off, his eyes unfocusing slightly as he looked into the distance, imagining exactly what would happen. "When they do, we'll be waiting."

Willis nodded, and the other agent shifted from foot to foot.

"Agent Davis," Pierce said, "I want you to keep an eye on the Whitman boy." Davis nodded, and Pierce switched his gaze to Willis. "Keep a watch on both the Evans parents." He placed his hand on the holster at his waist, his fingers tightening around the gun there. "I'm going to pay the Sheriff's son a visit."

* * *

Max and Liz struggled up the incline and onto the road. Glancing about quickly to make sure that they were alone, Max stepped out onto the cement. 

"Stay in the shadows on the sides," he advised. "If you hear a car coming, hide!"

Liz nodded her acceptance, still not trusting herself to speak. Finally, she said, "You got rid of the other ones."

"I delayed them," Max answered, "with schoolboy tricks. They're still coming. We aren't safe yet."

As he said the words, the sound of a distant engine rumbled through the air, and he and Liz pressed themselves into the bushes again, hiding as far out of sight as possible. They stayed crouching on the ground, not wanting to move until the car had passed them, but it seemed that the car would never approach. It was driving slowly, and it took a full five minutes until it appeared.

And then Max saw who was driving it and leapt to his feet, rushing out into the street.

Valenti slammed on the breaks as he saw Max and Liz emerge from their hiding place, and Michael threw the back door open. "Get in!" Michael directed frantically, looking around as though he too could sense the presence of the FBI close by.

Max and Liz obeyed instantly, climbing into the car, and Valenti sped off into the night.

* * *

Returning to consciousness was both a blessing and curse. As her eyes fluttered open and she drew a shaky breath, Tess felt relief at the sight of Maria and Isabel, at the understanding that she was still alive and now safe. But even as she thought that, the first ache began to creep into her bones, and she became fully away of just how much pain she was in. Everything hurt, and it took all her self control to keep the tears at bay. 

Isabel dropped to her knees at Tess' side, flinging her arms around Tess' neck and hugging her tightly. Over and over, she muttered, "Thank God, thank God, thank God."

Behind Isabel, Maria watched the exchange with a half-smile. Tess had slowly returned the hug, and then pushed away and was rising unsteadily to her knees. She was blinking in the darkness, trying to make sense of her surroundings, but when she met Maria's gaze, she gave a returning smile.

And then the door behind them flew open, and on instinct both Tess and Isabel raised their hands, ready to blast anything that moved. But they recognized the people falling through the door, and dropped their arms. Max was at Tess' side in a heartbeat, hugging her, and Michael stood beside Max and squeezed Tess' shoulder in a rare display of affection. Liz went straight to Maria and gave her a hug, and the teenagers all stood around, relieved that they were alive.

And then Tess looked at the one figure still standing in the doorway, and her jaw dropped.

"Jim?" she stuttered, unable to comprehend her father's sudden appearance.

"Hi, Tess," Valenti answered calmly.

* * *

Next Chapter: From a Whisper to a Scream 

Due: Sun 11/4


	98. From a Whisper to a Scream

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: So, I figured I should tell you all now that this story is drawing to a close. There are about four or five more chapters left, and then it will be all done. I will write a sequel, basically a redo of Season Two. I don't know what I am going to call it, but I will let everyone know as soon as I figure that out, probably in the last chapter of this story. So any loose ends (and there will be a few) will be tied up in the sequel.

* * *

Chapter Ninety-Seven: From a Whisper to a Scream

Underneath the rubble of the base, something moved. The very center of the building had imploded, leaving the outer wings still standing like huge arms branching out of a sunken torso. The ground was littered with white tile and plaster and twisted metal, and the air was filled with the smell of smoke and scorched wood.

But underneath it all, something moved.

The man dug his way to the surface, pushing through the remains of the military base, fighting for the moonlight and the cool air and a chance to breathe.

Slowly, the figure straightened, standing tall in the center of the destruction, triumph gleaming in his cold yellow eyes.

Nasedo picked his way through the ruins, leaving the base behind him as he started his search for the Royal Four.

* * *

Tess stood shakily, her blue eyes wide. Her mouth was partially open, but no sound came from it. Instead, she stared blankly at Valenti, as though she had never seen anything quite like him. 

"He helped us escape," Max cut in, knowing that if left to their own devices, neither Valenti nor Tess would break the silence any time soon. "He's the one who brought us all here." He still didn't quite understand what had happened, but they were all safe right now, and that was entirely due to Valenti.

"Does he… know?" Tess whispered, turning to Max. Max shook his head uneasily, and Tess snapped her attention back to Valenti.

"How are you feeling?" Valenti asked. He would put aside his curiosity for the moment, until he was satisfied that Tess was out of any immediate danger. "You were unconscious for a while." He didn't say anything about her obvious bruises or the paleness of her skin.

"Fine," Tess answered tersely, not sure what else to say.

"Good." Valenti paused, then decided not to beat around the bush. "What are you?"

He was taking this calmly, but then Tess didn't know how he had reacted when he had first seen her use her gifts back at the Mirror Maze. She'd been too wrapped up in trying to save them all, and it had been Max who had taken her father to safety, Max who had been forced to deal with the consequences of what the Sheriff had witnessed.

She looked over at Max, Isabel, and Michael. They stared back.

They were trapped. There was no way out of this conversation, not with Valenti as the only one who could help them right now. But the FBI was on their trail and they didn't have time to play twenty-questions.

She bit her lip and answered the first thought that came to mind. "I'm your daughter."

"I know," Valenti answered, "but you're also not normal."

And Tess, her lips quirked into an ironic smile, echoed something Liz had said months ago, "What's so great about being normal?"

"Don't you trust me?" Valenti asked, and Tess' smile faltered.

"Do you trust me?" Tess asked in return, and when Valenti nodded, she continued, "Then please trust me now. I can't tell you anything right away, just that… I'm different. And we're still in danger." She wanted to tell him, she wanted so badly to tell him all the details, all the truths, but the image of Andrew and Jessica's dead bodies still played through her mind and she remembered Pierce's coldly calculating determination. They weren't safe yet, wouldn't be safe until this was finally over, and she didn't know who to trust anymore.

Valenti ran a hand through his hair, then turned to Max and said sharply, "Help her."

"What?" Max asked uncomprehendingly.

"Isabel said that I shouldn't have separated you two, that… that you could help Tess somehow. She said…" He glanced at Isabel, then shook his head. "She didn't explain, but if Tess needs your help and you can help her…" He jerked his head to Tess again. "Do it."

"No," Tess said almost instantly. She backed away from Max and added firmly, "I'm fine and we have more important things to worry about."

"You're obviously not fine, Tess," Isabel objected, unsure why Tess was refusing to be healed. She looked tired and sore, she was bruised, there was still blood on her lip from where she'd been struck earlier in the evening.

"I am," Tess said strongly, glaring at Isabel. "It's not like the FBI was going to kill me. They needed to keep me alive so they could study my like a lab rat for years to come."

"You seriously can't just accept their help?" Maria demanded, hands on her hips. "For God's sake, Tess, we're all on the same side."

But Max gave Tess a very shrewd look and said to the others, "Can you leave us for a moment?" Nobody questioned the request, but Maria shot Tess one last annoyed look as she and the others moved to the other side of the room, giving Max and Tess some privacy.

"Don't start," Tess snapped.

"That bad?" Max asked curiously.

Tess didn't answer, and he sighed. He knew why she didn't want to be healed. If he healed her, he'd see flashes of what she went through, and she was apparently determined to keep this from him. Her stubbornness was going to make it incredibly difficult, if not completely impossible, for him to change her mind.

"Stop trying to protect me, Tess."

"We have other problems to worry about, Max," Tess hissed. "Like what I'm supposed to tell Jim when this is all over." She hesitated, then added, "Assuming we're all alive when this is over." She slanted a look at the other teenagers, who were talking quietly, and at Valenti, who standing off to the side, still watching her with an unreadable expression on his face. "We need a plan."

"Worry about the Sheriff later. Right now we need to stop Pierce," Max said. "And for that, you need to be at your full strength."

"Stuff it, Max," Tess replied wearily, then stepped past him and walked over to her father and the others.

"What now?" Isabel asked, recognizing the look of defeat on Max's face. If Tess wasn't going to let herself get healed, that was her decision, and now they needed to focus on the current problems.

It was Valenti who answered the question. "Pierce is going to return to Roswell. He knows about all of you, and he knows Alex Whitman is involved in this as well. If he can't to you, he'll use Alex or any of your parents as bait. Or collateral."

"We need to get to him before he gets to them," Michael agreed.

"It might be too late for that," Valenti cautioned. "He's probably already there now."

"So what are we supposed to do?" Maria demanded. "Just leave Alex with an insane FBI agent? He's a murderer!"

"All the more reason not to rush into anything," Valenti reasoned.

"What about Nasedo?" Liz asked, glancing over at Max. "We still don't know…"

Max shrugged. "If he shows up later, we can worry about it them. But he's not here right now, so he's not a problem yet."

"Who's Nasedo?" Valenti asked.

"Wait, Nasedo's involved in this?" Tess asked, having not heard the role that the shape-shifter played in her rescue.

"Is he a friend or enemy?" Valenti tried again.

Michael gave a bitter chuckle and the Sheriff's question and answered honestly, "That's the problem. We don't really know."

* * *

Kyle glanced at the clock in surprise as the knock at the door started him from his thoughts. It was far too late for anyone to be visiting, and his father and Tess wouldn't have needed to knock. So who could it be? 

He walked over to the door, pulling it open slowly. The he paused, blinking in surprise.

Deputy Fisher was standing on his porch.

"My Dad's not here," Kyle said automatically, leaning against the doorframe. "I don't know where he is, actually."

"I know," Deputy Fisher replied. "That's why I'm here."

Kyle's eyes widened slightly, and he eyed the other man warily. "What?" he demanded, lips pressed together in a thin line. "What do you mean? Is something wrong?" There was no other reason for Fisher to be here, unless something had happened and he was delivering bad news.

"Something's happening, kid," Fisher said solemnly.

"Obviously," Kyle retorted, too upset to be annoyed that he had been referred to as a kid. "Is my Dad okay?" This was his worst nightmare come true, and the other man was standing there, acting nonchalant about the entire thing!

"I'm not sure," Fisher admitted. "He went to investigate a hit-and-run earlier this afternoon and then never returned. We couldn't get through to him on the police scanner, and…" He hesitated, then shook his head. "I can't tell you the rest, it's classified. But I need your help."

"I'm not helping you unless you tell me what's going on," Kyle snapped. "And where's Tess?"

"I_can't_ tell you," Fisher repeated, "but they're going to be in even more trouble if you don't…" Again, he stopped. Taking a slow breath, he said in a softer tone, "Look, Kyle, we just really need your help right now."

"What was this hit-and-run that my Dad was investigating?" Kyle asked finally, trying to bide some time until he had to make a decision. He knew that, in the end, he'd cave to whatever this man wanted if it meant bringing his father and sister home safely. But he was still going to take the opportunity to gleam any information that he could.

Fisher looked decidedly uncomfortable. "A car… exploded…" He hesitated, then added, "Maria DeLuca was involved."

"Is she alright?" Kyle asked instantly. First Amy, now Maria? Did that family have a death wish or were they just unlucky?

"She wasn't the victim," Fisher answered, rushing to set the matter straight. He hunched his shoulders slightly, eyes unfocused for a moment as though he was recalling past events. "She's the suspect."

"Maria made a car explode?" Kyle demanded incredulously. That was just ridiculous. He might not be a big man of the abrasive motor-mouth, but he knew Maria wasn't a felon. She wouldn't do something like that.

"Or someone who was in her car…" Fisher stopped, waiting for Kyle to catch his meaning. He didn't have to wait long, understanding soon flashed into Kyle's darkened eyes, and the deputy added, "We really need to know exactly what happened."

"And you think it might have been Guerin," Kyle said with a weary sigh. He ran his hand through his hair and stepped away from the door, gesturing for Fisher to enter the house.

"He and Ms. DeLuca are close, aren't they?" Fisher prodded. "And Mr. Guerin is known to be… reckless."

"Dad has been interested in him and the Evans siblings," Kyle conceded. And yet, somehow, he couldn't imagine Michael hurting anyone. He knew that there was something off about the other teenager, but the idea that he would make a car explode, that he could be responsible for Jim's disappearance…

He frowned. He didn't even understand how the pieces of this puzzle fit together. But his father might be in danger, and Fisher was offering to help.

Finally, he caved. "What do you want from me?" Kyle asked.

Fisher smiled and reached behind him, closing the door to the house.

* * *

"I'm not wild about going back to Roswell without a plan," Max said heavily as he stared through the window of the passenger side of the car. Liz was driving, and Isabel sat in the back seat. They had decided to return home, even though they had no idea what they were walking into, because Alex and Kyle could be in danger and no one was willing to just sit around trying to think up a plan. 

Still, it was dangerous and it made Max uneasy.

Michael and Maria were driving back in Maria's car, and Tess and Valenti had taken the Sheriff's. The plan was to meet up at the UFO Center, primarily because it was sure to be abandoned at this point and Max would be able to get them all safely inside. From there, Liz and Maria would call Alex and the Sheriff would contact Kyle. Isabel and Max were still both worried about their own parents, but it was unlikely that Pierce would go after them when he had two relatively helpless teenagers he could target.

"We have a plan," Liz argued.

"Yeah," Isabel agreed. "Just not a good one." She sank back into the seat, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Her relief at Tess' safe return was quickly fading, not to be released by the overwhelming realization of how daunting a task they had before them. She wasn't one to run from a fight, but she had no idea how they were going to win this.

"Not to mention that we still have no idea what to tell Valenti," Max added.

"I think you should trust him," Liz offered softly. "Tess does."

"How do you know?" Isabel snapped harshly. "She didn't answer all his questions, did she?"

Liz shrugged, not looking at Isabel. "She didn't say she would never answer them, did she?" she retorted. "Only that she couldn't answer them right now." Neither Isabel nor Max replied to her comment, so Liz said pointedly, "He did save us."

"He saved _Tess_," Isabel countered, "and that was before he knew what she was."

"He knows exactly who she is," Liz murmured. "She's his daughter."

Again, there was a silence, then Max changed the topic of conversation and said, "What about Nasedo?"

"How would he have survived that explosion?" Isabel asked.

Max shrugged. "Honestly? We don't know enough about him to assume that he couldn't have made it. I think… I think we just need to be prepared for the possibility that he's alive."

"What if he is?" Liz questioned. "We can't trust him."

"He did save us," Isabel said, mimicking Liz's earlier comment about Valenti. She ran a hand through her hair, glancing out at the road passing by. "I just don't understand… What are his motives?"

"He doesn't want us dead," Max said instantly. Liz and Isabel gave him curious stares, but he didn't explain how he knew that. Instead, he simply added, "But that doesn't make him our friend."

"So, basically," Isabel sighed, "we're back at square one."

* * *

By the time they all reached the UFO Center, the night had faded away into early morning. The sun would be rising soon, and it was only a matter of time before their absences would be too obvious to explain away. Were Mr. and Mrs. Evans already out searching for their missing children? 

Max lead the others to the front door of the Center. He unlocked it with the spare key Brody had given him and stepped aside to allow the others to enter. Michael went first, his eyes adjusting to the dim light. Maria followed behind him, clutching his arm tightly, afraid he might disappear in front of her. Isabel and Tess followed, and then Valenti and Max. Liz was the last to enter, and she closed the door softly behind her.

"Liz, call Alex, make sure he's okay," Max directed in an undertone as the group clumped in the center of the room. "Tess, you should call Kyle."

"No, I'll do it," Valenti cut in quickly. Tess gave him a strange look, confused about why he wouldn't want her to talk to Kyle, but the Sheriff didn't answer her silent question. Instead, he pulled out his own cell phone.

Before he could dial the number, however, his attention was caught by Liz, who was holding her own phone to her ear, a worried expression on her face. "Alex isn't answering," she said after listening to several rings.

"Maybe he's asleep?" Valenti suggested.

Maria shook her head. "Alex wouldn't have gone to sleep before hearing from us," she replied. Turning to Michael, she asked, "Do you think something's happened to him?"

"Nothing's happened to your human friend," a cold voice sneered, and, as one, the entire group spun around. Pierce emerged from the shadows, a cruel smile on his face. He was holding his gun in one hand, and his eyes were trained on the Sheriff. "Your son was most helpful."

It was Tess who spoke, her voice shaking with fury. "What did you do to Kyle?"

"Nothing," Pierce said. "I simply told him that it was imperative that I found you and your father…" He trailed off for a moment, then added, "One of my agents went to… speak… to Alex Whitman. He, too, was most helpful."

"What did you do to Alex?" It was Isabel speaking this time, and although her voice was quieter than Tess' had been, it was no less livid. Her face was pale, drained of all color, and her eyes were narrowed into thin slits of brown ice.

"My agent… convinced him… that it would be a good idea to talk…" Pierce answered with a smirk. He pointed his gun at Tess. "I don't think you and I ever got a chance to finish out little chats, did we?"

"I think I'm done talking to you," Tess spat. She took a step forward, her hands curled into fists, her fingers white. "You disgust me."

"_I_ disgust you?" Pierce echoed, raising an eyebrow in disbelief. "And how's that?"

"I know what you really are," Tess responded, her voice dropping to a whisper. "The things you do when you know that nobody is watching, that _nobody_ is there to reprimand you, when you don't have to worry about limitations… You call yourself human, but the things you do are _unheard_ of in circles of human dignity…"

She was standing only a few feet in front of him, and her entire body was trembling with pent-up rage.

"Tell me," she ordered harshly, "what did you do to my brother?"

"Tess…" Max said, his voice a warning. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy the prospect of watching Tess shred Pierce to pieces with her powers, but he didn't like what he was seeing in her eyes. This wasn't Tess, this was something darker, something that had been irrevocably broken by the hours in the white room. She was flirting with a darkness he could barely comprehend, and he didn't want her to go over the edge.

But Pierce was enjoying himself, enjoying pushing the figurative knife into the wounds he had caused and twisting it a little deeper.

"Your brother gave you up," Pierce said. "I did nothing to him. I simply told him that his father was in danger, and he pointed me in the right direction."

"You're lying," Tess countered. "Kyle didn't know we were coming here."

"You're so predictable," Pierce said casually. "Where else would you go." Then he looked past Tess. "You betrayed us, you betrayed your country," he snarled, spitting the words at Valenti.

"You're an embarrassment to our country," Valenti retorted.

"Me?" Pierce laughed bitterly. "I gave you a chance to work with us, to help us. Instead, you throw that offer back in my face and help the enemy?"

"They're not the enemy, Pierce," Valenti snarled, "and you were never on my side." He tilted his head to the side, and added, "Or have you forgotten the fact that you impersonated a deputy and lied to me, manipulated me, for the past several weeks?"

Pierce pointed his gun and Valenti, and fired.

"NO!" Tess spun around, the scream of horror erupting from her lips, filling the room with her panic and fear. Michael and Max, meanwhile, both acted on pure instinct. Michael jumped forward, knocking Valenti to the ground, out of the trajectory of the bullet. Max flung his hands at Pierce, knocking him off his feet with a powerful blast of energy that crackled through the air.

Maria rushed to Michael's side, fear flooding through her as she saw the wound in his back, the blood spreading rapidly through his clothing and pooling on the floor beneath him. Isabel and Liz moved towards Max, who was staring dumbly at Pierce trying to comprehend what had happened. Valenti drew himself up off the floor, and Tess sank to her knees by Pierce, checking for a pulse.

"Max, heal Michael," Maria begged, pulling at Max's hand to get his attention.

Max nodded and reached for Michael, placing his hands over the bullet wound and hoping that he would be in time to save his best friend. As he did this, Tess turned away from Pierce and looked over at the others.

"How long do you think he's going to be unconscious for? When will he wake up?" Isabel asked Tess, nodding towards Pierce. "We need a plan." Her mind was already thinking three steps ahead, not wanting to dwell on what had just happened, on the fact that Michael had been shot. He had to be okay, because she simply wouldn't be able to bear it if he wasn't. Her life was built around the other three, and she didn't know how to live without them.

"He won't," Tess said as she eyed Max, watching as he attempted to bring Michael back from the brink of death. "He's dead."

* * *

Next Chapter: Repercussions 

Due: Sun 11/11


	99. Repercussions

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: The next few chapters leading up to the end of this story are going to be pretty long because there are many things I need to fit into them. So please bear with me on this…

* * *

Chapter Ninety-Eight: Repercussions

In the weeks following, Nasedo would often look back and wonder why fate had been so incredibly kind to him.

It hadn't taken much to determine that the Royal Four had gone back to Roswell, and when he himself arrived in the sleeping town, he'd been torn on where exactly to go. He doubted that any of them had returned home, which meant they were either at the Crashdown, the UFO Center, or the cliffs. His first inclination had been to check at the Crashdown, and it was purely by chance that as he headed in that general direction he found himself walking past Alex Whitman's house. And it was simply luck that he looked up at the house as he walked by, luck that he saw the shadow move in front of the window, luck that he knew in a heartbeat that the shadow was too large to be the skinny Alex.

On whim, he moved towards the house, stealthily sneaking through the lawn and to the front door. He ran his hand over the lock, and the door clicked and swung open. He'd never been in the human boy's house, although he had made a point of memorizing where everyone involved with the Royal Four lived. As he stepped inside, he couldn't help but look around and try to glean as much information from his surroundings.

The Whitman family was neat. Tidy. Not the overflowing mess of the DeLuca house, not the organized chaos of Mr. and Mrs. Evans' rooms. Everything was dusted, everything was cleaned, everything was exactly in its place.

He crept up the stairs. On the second floor, he heard soft footsteps and turned sharply, his eyes drawn to the far door. A thin line of light seeped from the space between the floor and the door. A shadow moved by the door.

Nasedo walked determinedly towards the room, holding his breath and listening. He could hear the whisper of two voices, one high and frightened, but determined; the other a low growl. He caught phrases, bits and pieces of words that didn't make much sense on their own. But he knew the overall gist of the conversation, and he knew that Alex was in trouble.

He shoved open the door suddenly, and it knocked into the man standing in front of it. Alex, sitting on the chair by his desk, jumped into his feet as the FBI agent fell to his knees. He and Nasedo stared at each other for a moment, then Nasedo turned his attention to the fallen agent, forgetting about the boy for a moment.

The agent was reaching for his gun, which Nasedo kicked away from him. He then flung his hand at the agent, sending him crashing into the wall, where he slumped over, unconscious.

There was a silence, then Alex said, "I think my parents may have heard that."

Nasedo glanced at the door. "They didn't," he answered.

"How do you know?" Alex demanded.

Nasedo hesitated. He wasn't sure exactly how he could explain what he knew. He could feel Alex's parents in their bedroom, still asleep. Their energies were quiet, soft; not the bright, stronger energies of people who were awake and alert. But how could he make a human boy understand any of this?

Finally, he opted for a simpler explanation than the truth.

"Because I know the FBI. And I know that, before this agent came to talk to you, he probably made sure your parents wouldn't wake up and interrupt the conversation." At Alex's stricken look, he said swiftly, "They're alive. Just drugged. Probably tranquilized in their sleep."

That wasn't enough for Alex, who rushed from the room to check on his parents. He reappeared a few minutes later, looking relieved. He didn't say anything, and Nasedo didn't ask. He wasn't interested in the fate of two unimportant humans. He had bigger problems to solve.

"What happened?" the shape-shifter asked.

Alex shook his head. "I don't really know," he admitted. "I… the agent was suddenly in my room. I didn't even hear him come into the house. He said that Kyle Valenti had told Pierce that I knew where the others were, and he…"

"Where are they?" Nasedo interrupted quickly.

"I don't know," Alex answered, clearly frustrated. "I kept telling the agent that, but he wouldn't listen…" He trailed off and shrugged. "I mean, if they're all safe, then I have ideas of where they would go to regroup and plan their next move, but…"

"Did the FBI agent hurt you?" Nasedo asked, attempting to sound concerned. He wasn't good at this, but he knew that he needed to at least act like he cared about Alex. It was imperative for the humans to accept him as well, he understood that now.

"No," Alex said. "He hit me with the barrel of his gun, but other than that… I'm fine." He pointed to the bruise that was forming on his forehead. "Just a bruise." He walked over to the bed and sat down on the cushions. "Can't you sense where the others are?"

"No," Nasedo said regretfully. "I can only find them when they need me. Apparently, they don't think they need me right now."

"Before you knocked him out," Alex said, jerking his head towards the agent, "he said he was going to kill me. I think he meant to shoot me if I didn't tell him what he wanted."

Nasedo wasn't sure if this was a thank you or not, and he didn't really care. He hadn't saved the human's life out of any feeling or connection to Alex, and he didn't want gratitude. He simply had a job to do and a plan to finish, and he certainly wasn't going to waste the opportunity to take advantage of this situation.

"Did you tell the agent anything at all?"

Alex looked at the floor, suddenly quiet. "No," he whispered, "but I couldn't stop him from…" he paused, and Nasedo looked at him sharply. Taking a deep breath, Alex finished, "He looked at those." Alex pointed to the maps on his desk, and Nasedo followed his gaze.

They were maps of Fraiser Wood, of the desert, of Roswell. One of the maps even had Eagle Rock Military Base on it. The important thing about them, however, was that on the top of each one were the words_Property of the UFO Center_. Alex had taken them from the UFO center after the others had gone to rescue Tess. He'd been pouring over them, looking for answers and clues and anything that might help stop the FBI, prevent the enemy aliens from coming, and provide explanations for the four hybrids about their past.

"He called Pierce," Alex added. "I… I tried to stop him, but he was too strong. He told Pierce that he thought the others would probably meet there, at the Center."

"Why didn't you tell me this right away?" Nasedo asked, exploding with anger. Alex shrunk backwards, as though he could somehow escape it all, and Nasedo forced himself to calm down. He wanted to yell at Alex for being stupid enough to leave the maps in plain sight, for not stopping the agent, for not telling him this at the very beginning. But that would not help him gain the trust of the others.

"I didn't think…" Alex said diffidently.

Nasedo nodded slowly. "I understand," he heard himself say, the words leaving his mouth against his own personal emotions. "Anyway, the agent had a gun and would have killed you if need be. You couldn't have stopped him anyway."

Alex seemed startled at the words, but Nasedo didn't think about that. He was already turning towards the door, ready to go.

"We need to get to the others before it is too late," Nasedo said decisively. "Do you have a car?"

Alex nodded.

"Good. I want you to drive me to this UFO Center," the shape-shifter instructed. He looked at the agent. "I'll take care of him. Meet me outside in a few minutes," he said.

"What are you going to do to him?" Alex asked.

Nasedo just gave him a hard look and answered simply, "I'm going to take care of the threat."

Alex grabbed his car keys and left the room. He didn't want to know what was going to happen to the agent. He didn't want to see Nasedo kill.

* * *

"Why is it taking so long?" Maria demanded, her fingers clutching tightly to Michael's shirt. "It didn't take you this long to heal Liz."

Max shook his head. "Be quiet," he snapped, focusing his energy on his friend. Liz had been shot in the stomach, but this bullet had punctured Michael's lung and nicked his heart. The taciturn alien was already moving towards the white light that beckoned dead souls, and it was everything Max could do to bring him back.

After several tense moments, Michael's eyes fluttered open. "What…?"

"Oh, thank God," Maria wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders as he struggled to sit up, enveloping her boyfriend in a crushing hug. "Don't ever do that again."

"What happened?" Michael asked. "Valenti? Pierce? I… I don't remember…?"

"You pushed Jim out of the way of the bullet," Tess answered, walking over to him. "You got shot. Max healed you. Jim is fine." She answered the questions in short sentences, as though the words were stuck in her throat.

"And Pierce?" Michael pressed. If he noticed the strange way Tess was speaking, he made no comment on it.

"He's dead," Tess answered simply. She didn't give any details, but Max had pushed himself to his feet and moved away from the others. His haunted eyes stared at Pierce's unmoving body, his face pale and drawn.

"We need to get out of here," Isabel said finally, not knowing what else to do. Her brother appeared not to have heard her, so she tried again, "Max, Alex and Kyle might be in danger."

Max stared at her. "Right," he said unemotionally. "We should… find them."

"Max, he was going to kill you," Liz murmured, reaching for the alien King's arm. "He tried to kill Sheriff Valenti, he almost did kill Michael… you did what you had to do. You saved us."

But Max pulled away from her. "I know," he said in the same unemotional voice. "I did what needed to be done."

To his credit, Michael didn't ask any more questions. He didn't need to know the details of what had happened, and he could tell by the look on Max's face that now was not a good time to start asking for answers. Instead, he rose to his feet, carefully detangling himself from Maria's hug, and said, "We should get to Alex's house. And Tess and Sheriff Valenti should check on Kyle."

The door behind them was suddenly shoved open, and the group turned around again, expecting the FBI to come streaming into the dimly lit room.

But it was Alex and Nasedo.

"Alex!" Isabel rushed to his side, hugging him instantly. He stiffened in her grasp, surprised, then returned the hug. Over her shoulder, he saw Tess and gave a tight smile, attempting to indicate that he was glad she was safe.

Tess watched impassively. Her eyes, Alex noted, seemed darker than usual.

"You're alive," Michael said to Nasedo. "How?"

Nasedo answered with a crooked smile, "I still have a few tricks up my sleeve."

"He saved my life," Alex announced, stepping away from Isabel and getting hugs from Maria and Liz. "An agent came to my house. He was threatening to kill me. Nasedo stopped him."

The pronouncement was met with silence as all eyes stared at Nasedo for a moment. Finally, Isabel said quietly, "Thank you."

Nasedo turned to look at her, opening his mouth to respond, when Valenti said incredulously, "You're Sean. You… you knew about all this?"

Nasedo looked down at his body, remembering that he was still wearing Sean's face.

"It's a bit more complicated than that," Tess cut in, "but can we break up the happy reunion and go save my brother, who could still be in danger?"

"What about Pierce?" Liz ventured, glancing behind her. It was then that Nasedo and Alex noticed the agent's dead body, crumpled on the floor. His eyes were still open, staring blankly, seeing nothing. The front of his uniform was singed slightly where Max's blast of energy had hit him.

"He's dead," Nasedo said. Surprisingly, he felt little vindication by this. He had assumed that, once Pierce finally got what was coming to him, he would feel ecstatic. Revenge was supposed to be sweet, wasn't it? So why didn't he feel happy?

"Yes," Max answered dully.

Nasedo didn't ask questions. He gave Max a shrewd look, then said, "Go to the Queen's brother. I'll take care of this."

"Queen?" Valenti asked, glancing at Tess. She didn't even look at him, just hurried out of the Center. The others followed, and Nasedo remained behind, staring at Pierce's body.

"I warned you," he said to the silent room. "I told you that one day I would stand over your dead body and gloat. I kept my promise. You should have listened."

* * *

"Tess? Tess, why is Maria's father part of this?" Jim demanded once again. He and Tess were driving back towards their house, but Tess had been silent most of the way, and even now she met his eyes but didn't answer the question. "Tess?" he pressed.

"I don't think you should get involved in this," Tess answered as Jim pulled the car towards the curb outside their house. The lights in the living room were on, but they couldn't see anyone moving behind the window shades. "It doesn't ever end well for the people who do."

"If you're involved in this, Tess, so am I," Jim answered firmly.

Tess didn't reply. She unbuckled her seatbelt and threw open the door before Jim had even brought the car to a full stop. Scrambling from the vehicle, she raced towards the house. At the same time, a car pulled up behind Jim and he glanced over his shoulder to see Max and Liz sitting in the front seats, staring wordlessly at the house.

He got out of the car as well. Tess had already reached the door and pushed it open, and he frowned, wondering if it had been locked. He hadn't seen her take out her keys…

From the light flooding through the open door, he could see the silhouette of Kyle appear and stop in front of Tess. She said something to him, and he answered, but Jim couldn't hear any of the conversation. Then Tess did something very strange and very unlike her usual self; she threw her arms around Kyle and hugged him. He froze, reaching up awkwardly to pat her head with one hand, and then she pushed away from him and walked into the house.

Kyle hurried down the steps. Two more cars had pulled up behind Max and Liz, and now Isabel, Alex, Michael, and Maria were all spilling out onto the sidewalk. Kyle froze when he saw them, but then continued forward, pausing in front of his father.

"Dad? What's going on? Deputy Fisher said you were in some sort of trouble."

Jim glanced beyond Kyle to where he could see Tess, standing in the doorway watching them all. "I wasn't the one in trouble," he answered quietly. "Come on inside, Kyle. We need to talk."

Kyle gave his father a confused glance, but followed him towards the house. As they left, Max turned to the others, worry etched into his face.

"What now?" he asked. "This is far from over." He didn't say anything else, but the haunted look had not left his eyes and Pierce's death lingered between them all, an unspoken reminder of just how bad things had gotten for them all.

"We need to figure out what to tell Valenti," Liz murmured, reaching out to touch Max. He pulled away from her sharply, and a hurt expression briefly crossed her face. She forced herself to remain calm, pushing away all her fears, and continued, "He knows too much not to tell him the truth."

Isabel watched the interaction between Liz and Max. She didn't say anything, but she knew exactly what was going through both their minds. Max, horrified by what he had done, could not see past the death he had just caused, and Liz, terrified at Max's distantness, was desperately clinging to hope that she could pull him closer.

"I need to talk to Tess," Max said finally. He needed to find out what she wanted to do about Valenti because this would affect her the most. At the same time, he also wanted to touch base with her, to see how she felt. The darkness he had seen in her eyes when she spoke to Pierce scared him, and he wanted to make sure that she didn't do anything…rash.

He turned and walked away, leaving the others to stare after him.

"Somebody needs to talk to Max," Isabel murmured, glancing over at Michael. "He's not… he has to understand that this isn't his fault…"

"It is his fault," Maria countered, "and he's never going to believe anyone who says otherwise. We need to explain to him that what he did was necessary. He saved us." She looked at Isabel, then at Michael. Beside her, she could practically feel Liz's apprehension.

"I hate to be the one to remind you of this, but we still have other problems," Alex said softly. "How much does the FBI know? And what about the hit-and-run that Valenti accused Maria of?"

"The base exploded," Isabel said numbly. "That's going to cause a problem. People are going to ask questions."

"I still don't know what to think about Nasedo," Liz whispered.

"He was wearing Sean's face! He killed Sean and then he…" Maria trailed off, apoplectic with rage. Somehow, seeing Nasedo like that seemed familiar. Something was tugging at the edges of her memory, but she just couldn't identify what it was.

"I have an idea," Michael said quietly, thoughtfully.

Liz looked at him blankly. "Tess was tortured for God knows how long by the FBI, Maria's being accused of vehicular homicide, the FBI knows who we are and where we are, Alex was almost killed this evening, we have no idea what to think about Nasedo, Valenti is demanding answers, and my boyfriend is falling apart because he just killed someone, and you have a plan?" She shook her head. "It must be one hell of a plan."

"Alex, Isabel, go talk to Tess, figure out what to tell Valenti," Michael instructed. He knew what Tess was going to do, he had known since Valenti first helped them escape that the petite blonde would eventually tell him the truth. He didn't trust the Sheriff, and that wasn't going to change, but he had seen the look of utter terror in Tess' eyes as Pierce fired that bullet at Valenti, and he could not deny that she loved him, even if she would never be able to admit it. He had also heard the fierce protection in Valenti's voice when he spoke about Tess, and he knew the Sheriff wasn't going to back down from this one.

"What about Max?" Isabel questioned, still worried.

"Liz, talk to Max. Maria, come with me." Michael spoke authoritatively, and for once, nobody argued with him. Max was too involved in his own personal crisis to lead the group, which meant that Michael was the one who had to pick up the slack, and for the first time in his life, he was doing something which felt completely and totally _right_.

* * *

"Would someone please tell me what is going on?" Kyle demanded, looking between his father and Tess. Valenti was standing near the kitchen, his arms crossed over his chest, his gaze focused on Tess. Tess was sitting on the edge of the sofa, avoiding Valenti's gaze. Kyle stood in between them, and Max watched the entire scene from just inside the front door.

"Deputy Fisher is actually an FBI agent," Valenti said.

"Jim," Tess cut in warningly.

"I won't lie to my own son," Valenti retorted. "Besides, Kyle knows too much now. How are you going to explain it without giving answers?"

Tess' lips flattened into a thin line as she answered coldly, "I could always just make him forget."

"Tess!" Max hissed, jumping into the conversation. He couldn't deny that he didn't want to tell Kyle what was going on, but what choice did they have? If Valenti refused to let them lie to his son, then they needed to come up with a different plan, and threatening to mind-warp Kyle was not the best way to go about doing that.

"You're going to screw up my son's brain?" Valenti asked, eyes narrowing. "Can you even do that?" He had gleaned enough from conversation with the others to know that the four teenagers had special gifts, but he wasn't entirely clear on what they all were.

"I'm right here," Kyle snapped, interrupting them. "Stop talking about me like I'm not in the room."

"The FBI almost killed Alex because of his involvement in this," Tess said in a low voice. "The real Sean is dead, as is Dr. Drake, Julia Topolski, Nick Latcher, Hank Guerin…" She hesitated, then added, "And Andrew and Jessica." Frowning at Valenti, she added, "All because they knew too much about something related to us. Do you want Kyle to be added to that list?"

Valenti didn't answer.

"Just because he knows the truth doesn't mean he's going to die," Max murmured softly, staring at Tess. He noticed that she'd left Agent Pierce's name of the list of casualties, and he couldn't help but wonder if she'd done it on purpose.

Tess didn't even bother to answer. Her eyes were still locked with Valenti's, waiting for his reply.

Valenti stared at her, remembering the way she had looked, pale and fragile, as she lay unconscious in his car. No matter what anyone else believed, he loved her like she was biologically his daughter, and he had come very close to losing her. Could he risk both his children's lives?

"It's not my decision," Valenti said, looking at Kyle. "Kyle isn't a baby anymore. He has a right to know."

"And I have a right to want to protect my family," Tess answered.

"What is going on?" Kyle said again, trying to draw the focus back to the all the secrets and lies that had just come unraveled. "Dad? Tess?" He looked back and forth, but no one answered right away, and he pressed, "What did you mean when you said Deputy Fisher was really an FBI agent?"

Max walked over to Tess and placed a hand on her shoulder. She glared at him, but he said anyway, "We should talk about this first."

At the exact same moment, the door opened again and Alex and Isabel walked into the house, followed by Liz. The three of them froze, staring at the tableau, waiting for someone to tell them what had happened.

"Jim knows too much," Tess said softly, her voice low enough that only Max could hear it. "Even if I had the power to completely erase everything he's learned, it would be too dangerous to attempt. I'd probably kill him. But Kyle knows less, so there is still a chance…"

"You can't just use your gifts to make decisions about other people's lives," Max countered, raising his voice enough that everyone else could hear it. This was a group conversation, and he wasn't going to let Tess talk him out of his position. "I don't want to tell Kyle any more than you do, but if the Sheriff says…"

"What does it matter what the Sheriff says?" Tess demanded angrily. "Kyle isn't involved in this."

"Pierce interrogated him today," Isabel countered, backing up her brother. "I think he is involved in this whether he wants to be or not."

"When did you suddenly become okay with telling everyone our secret?" Tess asked haughtily. She rose to her feet, placing her hands on her hips, and added, "If I remember this correctly, you all wanted me to investigate whether or not I could erase Maria's memory right after Liz told her what was going on."

"We thought she was going to turn us in," Max protested. "Besides," he added, now confused, "you said you couldn't do it. Why can you erase Kyle's memory and not Maria's?"

"Maria didn't want to forget. I can make it so that Kyle does," Tess answered.

Liz glanced over at Alex and asked under her breath, "Did we know that they were thinking of erasing Maria's memory?" She slanted an accusatory look at Isabel, who just shrugged calmly and said nothing. Max quickly avoided Liz's gaze.

"I don't really remember any conversations about that," Alex said thoughtfully, "but we might have been… informed… that they were planning on doing something like that. After all, Tess wasn't exactly unwilling to use her gifts on us."

Tess raised one eyebrow and said, "You were going to tell Jim that Max was a dangerous threat," she defended herself.

"Look, none of us are wild about putting someone else's life in danger," Isabel said softly, deciding to interrupt the escalating argument, "but I don't see that we have any other choice."

"Somebody tell me what is going on!" Kyle ordered, furious. "Now."

Tess gave Kyle a thoughtful look. "You're right," she said finally. "This really is your decision." She ran a hand through her hair, tugging at the curls. Her muscles were stiff and sore, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the myriads of emotions coursing through her veins. She would do anything, _anything_, to make sure that her family stayed safe.

And she knew exactly what she had to do.

"Max, Michael, Isabel, and I are not normal," she said. "The FBI and some other… not normal people… may be after us. We've been hunted and manipulated and lied to and… most recently, kidnapped and tortured."

Kyle stared at her blankly. "Really?" he demanded, not quite believing her.

Max and Isabel exchanged a look, having no idea where this conversation was going.

Tess stepped forward. "Take my hand," she said softly. Kyle gave her a confused look and hesitantly extended his own hand, wrapping his fingers around her palm. For a moment, the two of them just stood there, staring at each other, then Tess began to focus her energy on her memories of the white room and Kyle felt his entire world suddenly turn up-side down.

_Tess biting her lip to keep from crying out in pain._

_White, everywhere. So painful. Ice cold. Electricity. Burning heat._

_Pictures of Andrew and Jessica. Horror at Pierce's words, and his accusations._

_Fear. Overwhelming fear._

_Pain._

_White._

Kyle jerked his eyes opened and yanked his hand away from Tess, staring at her in terror and bewilderment. Valenti had rushed to his son's side, and Max and Isabel had come to stand behind Tess. But Tess and Kyle ignored them all, staring only at each other.

"What was that?" Kyle breathed.

"A flash," Tess answered. "Several of them, actually. Bits and pieces of my memories. It something I can do… one of the things that makes me not normal."

"Why did that happen to you?" Kyle asked. His fear at finding out that his sister didn't seem to be completely human was overshadowed by his fury at what he had just witnessed, what these people had done to her.

"Because the man you saw, Pierce, is afraid of me," Tess answered honestly. "Of us," she remedied the statement, waving her hand to include Max and Isabel. "He pretended to be a deputy, but he's really an FBI agent. And he will kill anyone who stands between him and us."

"What are you?" Kyle whispered.

Tess look at him and replied, "I'm your sister." She took a step towards him and was relieved that he did not back away. "Andrew and Jessica are dead. Maria was kidnapped, Alex was almost killed, Pierce tried to shoot Jim. There's an entire world of people somewhere who are relying on the four of us to deliver them from a bloody war. I can't guarantee that I will be able to save any of them. I certainly wasn't able to protect this Hardings. But I can protect you." She swallowed hesitantly, nervously, and stared Kyle straight in the eye. "I am begging you, as you sister, to let me keep you safe."

Kyle looked from Tess to his father. Valenti stared back, his expression impassive, clearly not sure what to say. He did not like the idea of Tess playing around with his son's mind, but he couldn't deny that Tess made a convincing plea.

Alex looked over at Liz. She was pale, her eyes constantly traveling between Max and Tess. He could see the worry that radiated from her in waves. There little group was falling apart as each person tried to deal with what had happened to them. He shivered as he remembered the coldness in the FBI agent's eyes as the gun was pointed directly at him. He had been so sure he was going to die at that moment. But this fear was something that the aliens lived with every day, and he could barely begin to comprehend the type of effort it took for them all just to survive.

"Can I think about it?" Kyle asked finally.

"Yes," Tess said, but the relief was palpable in her voice. It was clear that she believed that Kyle would let her erase his memory, and Max and Isabel knew that Tess was a good judge of her brother. If she thought that Kyle had already decided in favor of her intervention, then they trusted that she was right.

"I'm going to lie down," Kyle said. "I don't… I don't think I want to hear any more of this." He turned and walked away from the others, disappearing down the hall and into his room.

Valenti watched him go, then turned back to Tess. "I still want answers," he said, and Tess nodded.

Isabel murmured softly to Tess, "Do you want us to stay?"

Tess shrugged, but Isabel could see how much she wanted another person there while she was having this conversation with the Sheriff.

"Liz, Max, why don't you guys walk back to our house," Isabel suggested, giving Liz a pointed look. "Maybe you can come up with something to tell Mom and Dad." She settled herself on the sofa, and Tess took a seat next to her. Liz walked over to Max and took his arm gently in her own, pulling him away from the others.

"I don't think…" Max started, but Alex cut him off.

"You should talk to Liz, Max," he said. "Don't worry. We'll stay and make sure everything is okay."

Max nodded reluctantly and allowed Liz to pull him from the room.

"So," Valenti said as he took a seat across from Tess and Isabel. "Tell me the truth. No more lies."

Tess sighed. "No more lies…" she agreed.

* * *

The night air was cold. It was the first thing that Max noticed as he and Liz started towards the car. Behind him, through the window, he could see Tess talking softly, gesturing with her hands, and Valenti listening with rapt attention.

They paused at the car, and Max glanced up at the sky, at all the little stars that dotted the inky blackness of the night.

"You know what normal couples are doing now?" Max asked, glancing over at Liz. "Going to the movies. Making out. Or… given how late it is… probably just sleeping. But not trying to decide the fate of some distant world. Not rescuing a family member who's been tortured. Not killing someone."

"Max…" Liz started, but stopped when she saw the dark look cross his face.

"I don't want to hear your justifications for what I did," Max said, more harshly than he intended. "I _killed_ a man." He looked away, ashamed by his own words.

"You didn't have a choice," Liz argued. "Pierce tried to kill Valenti. He almost succeeded in killing Michael. And we know what he did to Tess as well."

"I'm a healer, Liz," Max replied. "And even if I haven't been a very good healer lately, I am…" He stopped, groping for the right words, struggling in vain to express his feelings. "I'm not supposed to kill."

"You saved us," Liz countered.

Max shook his head. "Michael jumped in front of Valenti. Michael saved him. What did I do? I killed someone. It shouldn't be like that. I should have followed Michael's example. I should have…"

Liz raised an eyebrow and attempted a bit of levity. "Is Max Evans actually saying he wants to be more like Michael Guerin? I think Hell has just frozen over."

Max responded with a smile, grateful at her attempt to cheer him up. But there was nothing she could say that would ease the aching in his heart or erase the knowledge of what he had done.

"You can't help me," he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the keys to his car. "I know that Alex and Isabel wanted you to talk to me to… I don't know… make this all better? Fix it? But you can't. It doesn't work like that, it doesn't suddenly become okay to kill someone." He unlocked the doors and walked around to the driver's seat. He and Liz climbed into the car.

"It's never okay to kill anyone," Liz answered, "but sometimes it is necessary. You kept us alive, Max. You think Pierce would have stopped firing those bullets as soon as Michael knocked Valenti out of the way? He would have just kept shooting at all of us, and probably killed you. And then you wouldn't have been able to save Michael, and more of us would have died."

Max shook his head. "I know. But I… it doesn't make it easier to come to terms with what I did."

"I love you," Liz whispered.

Max gave her a searching stare, then replied, "You shouldn't."

* * *

Next Chapter: Ending Start

Due: Sun 11/18


	100. Ending Start

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: This chapter references the communication between Nick Latcher (the reporter) and Cynthia Drake (the doctor's wife) that occurred during the chapter The Promise. If you don't remember what happened, Nick sent Cynthia a letter with details about the FBI in Roswell and told her to publish it if he ever got killed.

* * *

Chapter Ninety-Nine: Ending Start

Valenti stared at the papers in front of him. The office was dark and silent, the only noise the slow radiating hum of the heating system. Occasionally, the wind would cause tree branches to snap against the side of the building or rattle the windowpanes. The only deputy on duty that night had been Fisher, and with him dead, there had been too many other problems to worry about, and Valenti hadn't had time to find someone to replace him for the shift.

Kyle had gone to sleep shortly after Tess' revelations to him. Tess had told Valenti as much as she could, answering all of his questions, stumbling over the details, trying to explain her past. The bits and pieces that he understood left him breathless and awestruck. A far away planet, a battle among royalty, the FBI infiltrating everything. All the deaths that were really related to this alien fiasco. A shape-shifter playing Amy's previous husband. A Native American shaman, a conspiracy theorist in Marathon, Texas.

And then there were the less than pleasant revelations. Tess had the ability to invade someone's mind, to play around with their memories, emotions, desires. And she had done it, on more than one occasion. Her voice had shook slightly as she revealed the numerous times they had manipulated him, trying to get him off their trail.

"_Why are you telling me this?" he had asked, bewildered. He didn't understand why she would be so honest, why she wouldn't just hide some of the less than pleasant things she had done._

_She gave him an unreadable stare. "We said no more lies," she had answered._

He shook his head. The papers on the desk were the half-finished reports of the hit and run. The only two people who had so far connected Maria's name with the suspicious car were himself and Pierce, and Pierce was dead.

He picked up and pen. He couldn't change too much of the information or any review board might get curious. The last thing anyone wanted was to draw more attention to Roswell, New Mexico. But he could report that he had investigated the claim and determined that Maria's car had not been involved, and furthermore the girl herself had been too far away from the scene of the crime to be considered a suspect.

As he was filling out the paperwork, his eyes slid to the envelope placed on the corner of his desk. Amy had given it to him a few days ago, asking him to make sure it got filed with the appropriate people. He had advised her to take it to a lawyer, but she had insisted that she trusted him to do it more than anyone else.

It was her petition for divorce from Sean Everett.

He wondered if Maria knew that her mother had finally separated herself from the past.

"_So… how long did you know that Sean was really Nasedo?" he had pressed, glancing from Tess to Isabel. Isabel had seemed to blanch at the question, and gave Tess a pointed look._

_Tess had shaken her head grimly and answered, "Not long enough. We should have figured it out sooner. Without Isabel… we might still not know."_

He picked up the envelope and stared at it for a moment. He wasn't sure what to do with it, now that he knew the real Sean was dead. Did anyone else know he was dead? Had his disappearance been noticed? Surely he had friends back on the East Coast, ones who were getting a little suspicious about his longer-than-planned absence. If he filed the petition, and if Sean's death was discovered, would investigators come to Roswell and start asking questions? He could afford that, but how could he refuse to grant Amy's request and leave her tied to this man indefinitely?

How could he look Amy in the eyes and lie to her about the danger her daughter was constantly in? How could he lie about all the secrets he knew, about Sean, about the aliens? How could he do any of this? How did the seven teenagers manage it?

"_You can't just play with people's minds like that!" he had protested angrily. His own daughter had manipulated him, brainwashed him, done whatever she could to keep him from the truth._

_Tess crossed her arms over her chest. "I do what I have to, Jim," she had answered defiantly._

"_Doesn't it bother you?" he had pressed._

_She had hesitated, then answered, "Not nearly as much as the idea of someone I love getting hurt… or worse." A bittersweet smile playing around her lips, she had added, "And I do have some experience in the area."_

_It was the only time in the entire conversation she had eluded to Andrew and Jessica. He had not asked how or why his friends had really died. He hadn't wanted to know._

Isabel had mentioned that Michael had some plan to tie up all these loose ends. He would hold off on filing the petition until he had a chance to talk to Michael and determine what the hybrid had done about Sean. In the meantime, it was imperative that he clear Maria's name.

He focused his attention back to the paperwork.

* * *

"What are you doing?" Maria demanded impatiently, watching as Michael turned on her computer and began searching through her email.

"When we broke into that reporter's hotel room, he had sent an email to the wife of your Mom's doctor, telling her about what he was doing. You said you forwarded the email to yourself in case you would need it in the future," Michael replied. He paused, his eyes landing on the email message. "We need it now."

He opened the email and stared at it, reading over the lines. The reporter had informed this woman, Cynthia Drake, that Pierce was FBI. That he had been investigating something in Roswell, and his investigations had ended with several people dead. But he didn't know the details of what the investigation was, and so his email had been vague. But he had instructed Cynthia to leak this information to the press if anything should happen to him.

"What are you going to do?" Maria asked breathlessly.

Michael gave a humorless smile. "I'm going to bring about the end of the Special Unit," he answered. He glanced over at Maria. "We need to open a fake email account."

"You can do that on Hotmail," Maria answered. "They might be able to trace it back to this computer, though. How untraceable does it need to be?"

"I'd prefer if Mrs. Drake could never find us," Michael answered honestly. It was too dangerous to leave any trial that lead back to him or other others.

"Hmm…" Maria considered that for a moment, then said, "Alex might be able to help with that. Plus, if we use a computer at the public library, no one could pin the email to us."

"Alright," Michael said carefully. "I'm going to write an email that I want sent to Cynthia Drake. When I'm done, can you forward it to Alex and tell him what he needs to do?"

Maria nodded. "Sure," she answered.

Michael began to type, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

_Dear Mrs. Drake,_

_I regret to inform you of the passing of your friend Nick Latcher. He was killed during an investigation of drug smuggling._

"Drug smuggling?" Maria asked, raising an eyebrow in amusement.

Michael gave a feral smile. "Izzy told us that someone came to talk to her parents a few weeks ago about the possibility of her, Max, and I being unknowingly involved in some drug ring. She thought whoever spoke to her mother was probably FBI, trying to get as much information from the Evans family as possible." Calculating laughter glittered in his eyes as he added, "It's their own sword that they will be impaled on."

"Poetic," Maria quipped, rolling her eyes.

_I was investigating this particular story when Mr. Latcher came to me and offered his help. I tried to dissuade him from this because I knew how dangerous it was, but he was adamant. He informed me that one of his friends had been killed, and he wanted the murderer brought to justice._

_I must ask you now for your help. Before he died, Nick told me that he sent you information about our investigation and instructions to take this information to a specific reporter if need be. I am close to completing this story, but my time has run out. I need you to leak the story instead._

"Do you think she'll trust you?" Maria questioned. "Her husband and her friend have been killed. She'd be a fool to trust a random stranger."

"She won't trust me right away," Michael answered. "She'll try to find Nick first. Once she discovers that he is nowhere to be found…" He trailed off grimly.

_This is what you must do. Contact the reporter and tell him you have a story. Then send him the next two paragraphs. You must not tell him anything else, or I fear innocent people will be hurt, particularly several children._

"Right," Maria drawled, "like she is actually going to listen to that."

"She's a woman," Michael countered. "She's too emotional to want to risk harming some poor innocent child."

Maria glared at him, but said nothing. The truth was that Cynthia Drake was a mother, and it was possible that Michael was right, that she wouldn't risk bringing suffering or destruction upon someone else's children.

"Besides," Michael added, "she was going to publish all the information anyway. It's better that we intervene and give it the slant we want than let her report whatever she feels like saying."

Maria gave Michael a searching look, wondering to herself when he had become so good at strategizing. But she said nothing, and Michael had already turned back to the computer, and missed the look that flickered through her eyes.

_The FBI has been smuggling drugs into the country to fund their black ops, those operations that they can't fund through the Senate because they don't want to admit they are doing them. Things like terrorism, torture, acts of rendition, all paid for by drug money._

_The unit in charge of this is called the Special Unit, and is run by a man named Agent Donald Pierce. Recently, he and his men destroyed a military base at Eagle Rock, New Mexico, because it was being used as a base of operations for a team of FBI agents who were investigating Pierce. Agent Julia Topolski, a friend and informant of ours, was killed to keep her from warning the others of the base's imminent demise._

"Do you really think people will believe the FBI is that corrupt?" Maria questioned, reading over what Michael had written.

Michael gave her an incredulous stare. "This country is full of conspiracy theorists and people who hate secret organizations. I don't think it would be too difficult to convince anyone not to trust a special unit that has no form of oversight and kills whenever it wants," he pointed out dryly. There were always rumors floating around the country of how the CIA was involved in organized crime or the NSC was selling dangerous weapons to subversive groups in foreign countries. This was just one more crime to add to the always-growing list.

_A prominent doctor in Roswell (please mention no names to protect yourself and your children) was also murdered after he administered treatment to a suspected turncoat. This man planned to sell out the FBI unit, and he informed his doctor of his desire to do so when he was admitted to the hospital after an attempt on his life. When the Special Unit learned of this, they arranged for both men to be killed._

Michael stopped. "I think that's enough," he said cautiously. "Mrs. Drake will leak the information to the press, and the FBI will have no choice but to investigate the matter and shut down the Special Unit."

"How can you be so sure?" Maria asked worriedly, not entirely convinced this plan wouldn't backfire on them somehow.

Again, Michael gave a cold smile. "Because Agent Pierce is going to see that it does." He stood, saving the document on the computer. "Get Alex to take care of this," he said quickly as he moved towards the door of her room. "I need to check on Max and Isabel."

Maria opened her mouth to say something, but then shook her head and remained silent. She wanted to ask Michael to stay. She'd been kidnapped by the FBI, she didn't remember everything about what had happened, and then they'd all had to save Tess and she'd seen Pierce killed and Alex had almost died, as had Michael, and Nasedo's reappearance… She didn't want to be left alone.

But Michael slipped noiselessly from the room, and she fell back onto her bed, exhausted.

* * *

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" Mr. Evans demanded as he gestured for his two children to sit on the sofa. Behind him, Mrs. Evans, wearing a bathrobe and slippers, gave Max and Isabel a disappointed look as she waited for them to answer her husband's question.

"Look, Dad, we're sorry, but…" Max trailed off helplessly, and gave Isabel a look. She shrugged, there really wasn't much they could say.

"We already grounded you once," Mr. Evans continued, "but that obviously didn't seem to work. What do we have to do for you to understand that there are rules in this house?"

"We know that there are rules, Dad," Isabel hurried to tell her father. "We just… something came up," she finished lamely.

"What was it?" Mrs. Evans asked, her voice a mixture of fatigue and concern.

Isabel avoided her mother's eyes as she said in a low voice, "I can't tell you." Next to her, she flet Max stiffen, and knew that he was reacting to the frustrated looks their parents were sending at her. "Please," she said, looking up at her mother, "you have to trust us…"

"Trust you?" Mrs. Evans echoed. "Isabel, how can we? You don't tell us what is going on, you ignore our rules and expectations…" She trailed off with a sad sigh. "This year, you two have been so different. Distant, and just… not the same as you used to be. Your father and I are worried."

"We aren't doing anything bad," Isabel protested, but she saw Max flinch out of the corner of her eye and knew he was thinking about Pierce's death.

"If you weren't doing anything wrong," Mr. Evans interjected, "why wouldn't you be able to tell us what is going on?" He leaned forward, desperately wanting an answer from either of his children. He didn't want to believe that they were involved in drugs or drinking or some other incredibly stupid activity that teenagers picked up. But he didn't know what to think right now, not with Isabel and Max obviously avoiding his question.

"We just can't," Max said simply. "We want to, we really do, but…"

"I don't think that wanting to is good enough, Max," Mr. Evans said solemnly. "You and Isabel go to your rooms. I will talk to your mother and we will discuss this again in the morning."

Max and Isabel quickly rose and walked past their parents. At the foot of the stairs, Isabel turned and looked back, longing evident on her face. But then she hardened her features and looked away, knowing that would not be able to tell her parents what had happened, not right now.

Once they were gone, the two parents looked at each other.

"They were such good children, Philip," Mrs. Evans mused. "They still are, but I just… I worry about them. What are they getting mixed up in?"

"I don't know," Mr. Evans conceded, "but we're going to put a stop to it. They're my children, and I'll protect them from everything I can, including their own wrong decisions."

* * *

The next day dawned with a bright orange sun rising over a clear horizon and lighting up the blue sky. Maria slowly tied the apron over her outfit and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She was pale and tired, and the last thing she wanted to do was work as a waitress. But she was supposed to take the shift, and she couldn't bail on it now.

She stepped out into the diner and glanced around. There were only a few patrons, but in the far corner, she saw Alex sitting in a booth. She'd called him the night before and explained the plan to him, and he'd agreed to help send the untraceable email. She'd also complained about Michael's decision to leave that night, when she really needed him there. But Alex had simply pointed out that Michael's family needed him as well, and sometimes he had to make difficult decisions like that. She wanted to come first for him, but she wouldn't always be the most important person in the world, and it was about time everyone got used to the way this group worked.

Making her way towards him, she forced herself to offer a smile.

"Hey, Alex," she said. Her voice was scratchy and tired, and Alex grinned.

"Good morning," he said. "How's it going?"

"Okay, I guess," Maria said, deciding not to mention the nightmares she'd had the night before. "Oh," she said suddenly, "I never did ask how the conversation with Valenti went. What did Tess tell him?"

Alex glanced around to make sure they weren't being overheard, then he said, "Pretty much everything she could. She didn't volunteer information, just answered his questions, but she was honest." He'd been surprised by her honestly, but he supposed that Tess had simply realized that she couldn't hide the truth any longer.

Maria, however, gave Alex a searching look and said, "She wanted to tell him. She's always wanted to tell him. This was her opportunity to get him to understand who and what she really was. She wasn't going to let it go to waste."

"I guess," Alex answered. "Sometimes I have difficulty remembering the Tess has normal human feelings, though." He laughed slightly and rubbed the back of his head absently. "I feel bad for Isabel and Max, though. Izzy called me last night and told me that her parents are really upset with them for being out so late and not being able to come up with a good excuse."

"It's hard to constantly lie," Maria agreed readily. She didn't comment on the fact that, out of everyone she could have spoken to, Isabel had chosen to call Alex. Sooner or later, the meaning behind that decision would become clear to the two people involved, and they would finally get back together.

The door jingled, announcing the arrival of another customer, and Maria turned around to see Michael entering the diner. He saw her, and walked over, his hands shoved in his pockets, his hair sticking up more than usual.

"You look tired," Maria commented as Michael drew near.

"Haven't slept yet," Michael admitted. "I was talking to Max most of last night. He's… having a difficult time with everything." In fact, Max had been having such a hard time, that when Michael had explained his plan to their leader, Max had barely listened. He'd just said that it sounded good and he trusted Michael. Max usually disagreed with everything Michael did, or questioned his reckless behavior, and it was this lack of interest that worried Michael more than anything.

Maria stared at him, her initial anger fading. Of course he had been forced to leave her. Tess had been tortured, Max had killed someone, and Isabel wasn't going to be able to hold everything together without any help. Michael was needed.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" Maria asked, gesturing towards the back room. Michael frowned, surprised, but nodded and followed her into the back.

Maria shut the door carefully, making sure that no one else was around to overhear the conversation. Then she turned and looked at Michael, her gaze traveling over all his features, studying them.

Michael, unnerved at this point, asked anxiously, "Is everything okay?"

Maria drew a deep breath, her heart protesting violently against the words she needed to say, and replied, "I think we should take a break."

"What?" Michael asked, caught completely by surprise.

"We… we take effort, Michael. And time. And you need to focus all your effort and time on your family. They need you now, more than ever." She looked away, blinking rapidly to keep the tears from falling. "I'm not saying that we should break up. Just… put things on hold for a while. Once we make it through the summer… then we can come back and… re-evaluate us… next school year."

"Maria, I don't want to…"

"I don't either," Maria interrupted, lifting a finger to Michael's lips and stopping him. "But you know that your family can't survive this without you. They need you, and you need to be with them."

Michael nodded slowly. It was true, with Max falling apart, he was the one who was going to have to lead the group, hold things together until they could all heal. But at the same time, he didn't know how he was supposed to do this without Maria. He was never good at words, never able to say what he wanted to say, and so he just stared at her, mouth partially open, grasping for something to express his thoughts. He needed her.

But Maria had already turned away and walked out of the room.

* * *

The Valenti household was quiet. The Sheriff was at work, leaving Tess and Kyle along. Tess stood in the kitchen, flipping pancakes in the frying pan on the stove, and glancing constantly over at Kyle, who sat at the table, drinking orange juice.

"I had a nightmare," Kyle said suddenly. "Of that guy… the one who hurt you."

Tess didn't answer. She'd been having nightmares as well, even since before she had ended up in the white room, but it seemed like a better idea to remain quiet and see what Kyle wanted to say.

"You said you could take away my memory. You can… control brains like that?" Kyle continued, now looking at Tess.

She nodded, but didn't elaborate.

"So you can just… just… make people see things that aren't… aren't actually there?" Kyle whispered.

Tess glanced up at Kyle, meeting his gaze. She carefully placed the spatula down by the stove, and closed her eyes, trying to come up with the right answer to the question. How many times had she lied to him, to Jim? How many times had the truth been right there, and no one had even noticed?

Jim had wanted proof of aliens, had known that something was going on with Max, Isabel, and Michael. After the shooting, she'd worked against him, carefully, methodically, pushing him further and further away from the answers, until finally mind-warping him. And he'd barely ever even suspected her.

When Kyle and Liz first broke up, Kyle couldn't believe that Liz would cheat on him. He shouldn't have believed that, because he knew Liz better. But it was easier to take the lie than to keep searching for the truth. Easier to think that Liz was a bad person than to wonder if there wasn't something else going on over his head.

All the clues were there. Everything that linked her to this entire alien mess… the photograph she always kept of the four aliens, the one that Kyle had found… her interest in Jim's progress with the shooting case when she never showed interest in anything else he did… her quick acceptance of Isabel into the group as though she already knew the other girl fairly well… her past, how it was so similar to Max, Isabel, and Michael, to what had happened to them, how they were found…

All the clues where there, it was just that no one had ever bothered to look. Was it really that they were hidden so well? Or, more likely, was it that neither Jim nor Kyle really wanted to think that she was in anyway involved in this?

None so blind as those who refuse to see…

The blonde alien opened her eyes and glanced over at Kyle, at the look on his face. He was doing his best to appear nonchalant, but she could see the disappointment, the suspicion, the distrust in his eyes. He wanted to know her answer, to know about what she could do, who she really was. But more than that, she knew that he just wanted her to be normal, wanted everything to go back to the way it once was.

A lie. Her entire life had been built around lying to two of the people she cared about more than anything else.

And it was easy to lie to them, because they hadn't wanted the truth.

"Yes," she said at last. "I can make people see things that aren't actually there. Sometimes…" She sighed and looked away, "Sometimes it's easier than making someone see what's right in front of him."

"I don't want to know this about you," Kyle said coldly, angrily, rising from his seat. His sister, and she had gone out of her way to hurt him. Not intentionally, but his family seemed to bear the brunt of her powers. What all could she do, and what had she actually done? Were any of his feelings about her real, or did she manipulate him to like her, to trust her? She was his sister, how could she…? "I don't want to know any of it. Can you really make it go away?"

She looked at him, and nodded again. "You want to forget. If you didn't want to forget, your mind would hold on to the memories and I'm not powerful enough to change everything. But since you don't want to remember, and since these are relatively small memories… yes… I can make you forget."

"Then do it," Kyle ordered.

* * *

"You need me?"

Michael turned around, surprised, and raised an eyebrow at the man in front of him. Nasedo's ability to know if he was needed, and to know_where_ he was needed, was slightly disturbing. On the other hand, if Nasedo was supposed to protect them, then it made sense that he would know when his gifts were needed. Assuming he was actually trustworthy…

"Yes," Michael answered. It had been a difficult decision to ask Nasedo for help, especially when all he wanted to do was punish this shape-shifter for the pain he had inflicted upon Maria. But thoughts of Maria made him instantly regretful, and he pushed the feeling aside, focusing on the task at hand.

"What do you need?" Nasedo asked. He knew the hybrid General did not trust him. And yet… it was this same boy who was now asking for his help.

"I've insured a way to leak information to the press… about the Special Unit. I've framed them for drug smuggling," Michael explained. "The Senate is going to have to investigate." He hesitated, then said, "And I need them to find a good scapegoat. The Special Unit needs to be disbanded, discredited, and destroyed."

Nasedo studied Michael for a moment, then nodded slowly, understanding. "You want them to drag Pierce in front of the Senate for questioning. You want him to look like a complete idiot."

"Yes," Michael answered. "But, of course, that is a little difficult to do considering that he is dead."

"I think that can be remedied," Nasedo said.

Michael watched in fascination as Nasedo's body began to shift, taking on a different form. Before his very eyes, the shape of Sean disappeared, and was replaced by the calculating gaze and smug expression of Donald Pierce.

"Can you make Pierce look insane?" Michael pressed.

Nasedo, now in Pierce's shape, answered, "Of course. When does this information reach the public?"

"Soon," Michael answered. He couldn't really give any better dates than that, not knowing how long it would take Mrs. Drake to act on his email.

"Then I will return to Pierce's office and await my summons to Washington DC," Nasedo said confidently. "I doubt it will be too long of a wait."

"How did you escape the base?" Michael asked abruptly before Nasedo had a chance to leave. "Why didn't you die in the explosion?"

Nasedo gave a half-shrug and answered, "It takes a lot to kill me." He held Michael's gaze for a beat. He knew the Princess would start to trust him because he had saved the human boy… Alex's… life. And the Queen was already leaning towards trusting him because she understood the information and skill he had to offer, and she was afraid of what would happen if they didn't take his offer for help. The King would want answers now, as he had killed a human being and was attempting to deal with this knew event in his life. But the General… He had been harder to predict them the others, and yet it seemed like he might have actually decided to trust the shape-shifter.

"I don't trust you completely," Michael said, and Nasedo wondered idly if his thoughts had been that evident on his face. "But I trust that you hate Pierce. I trust that you will do anything to destroy him, even after his death."

"You have my word on that," Nasedo promised emphatically.

"Then go," Michael instructed, and Nasedo turned and left.

As the shape-shifter walked away, he reflected to himself that, despite all the times his plans had been changed or foiled by unforeseen circumstances, he had still gained what he wanted, the trust of the Royal Four.

Fate really had been kind to him.

* * *

The hills around the pod chamber stretched out in a shimmering haze of heat and sand that contrasted with the still blue sky. Max felt the beads of sweat gathering on his forehead and matting against his hair. He had climbed as far as he could up the rocky hills, and now sat, perched on the edge of stone slab, in the shade next to the entrance of the cave.

Another car was parked alongside his on the distant road, and he could see a solitary figure climbing through the rocks and underbrush, making her way towards him. It didn't surprise him that she was here, but he almost wished she wasn't. He knew they needed to talk, he just had hoped for a little more time on his own before he would have to break both their hearts.

The figure came closer, and he could pick out her features, her straight brown hair, her doe-eyes. She was looking up at him as she climbed closer, and he knew that she knew that this was not going to be a cheerful conversation.

She finally reached him, and sank onto the stone next to him. Her hair was also matted with sweat and her face was flushed. She looked at him, bringing his hand up next to his and interlocking their fingers.

"Hey, Max," she said,

"Hey, Liz," he answered.

"Isabel said you came out here," Liz murmured gently. "I thought you might want some company." She squinted up at the sun and muttered, "Although I probably should have put on more sun-block."

Max smiled hesitantly at her words. He squeezed her hand and looked away, his gaze filled with pain and remorse. "My parents are upset because we couldn't tell them why we were out so late," he told her. "This year, Isabel and I have been so distant, so… different. And we can't tell them anything." His words broke slightly, and Liz wished that she could somehow help them. But there was nothing anyone could do to make this situation better, not when Max and Isabel still had to lie to their own parents every single day.

"I'm sorry," Liz offered, but the words sounded pathetic and trite even in her own mind.

"Yeah," Max said with a dark chuckle. "Me, too." He looked down at his hand, the one that was still intertwined with Liz's. "They've grounded us for the rest of the school year and at least the first month of the summer. We can't go out after the sun goes down except to school or work related events."

"Oh," Liz said. There wasn't really anything else to say.

"Yeah," Max agreed. "And I can't even be mad at them because they are just really worried about Isabel and I… and for a good reason."

"Well," Liz ventured, "I can come over to your house during the summer. We can hang out there."

"I don't think that is a good idea," Max said, slowly shifting his gaze to Liz's face.

Liz swallowed nervously, knowing what Max was really saying, but refusing to believe it. "Okay, then we can hang out during daylight hours at…"

"Liz," Max interrupted. "Don't."

Liz felt her eyes begin to burn with unshed tears. "We fought so hard for this, Max. I can't just let it go. I can't…"

Max reached up and wiped away a loose tear that had slipped from her eye and made it down her face. "Liz, I killed a man. And I don't know what is going to happen next. Michael has a plan, and I think it will work, but even so… I'm supposed to lead and I don't know…" He stood up and turned away from Liz, unable to watch her cry. "I'm dangerous," he said firmly.

"Not to me," Liz protested.

"You don't know that," Max answered heatedly, spinning around and staring at Liz. "Michael almost died, Tess almost died, Alex could have been killed, Valenti could have been killed."

"It wasn't your fault!" Liz answered, rising to her feet as well. She walked over to Max and stood directly in front of him, forcing him to look at her. "None of this was your fault."

"But it still happened," Max pointed out. "I'm dangerous, Liz, whether you admit it or not. And I can't… I could never live with myself if something happened to you because of me."

Liz caught his arm, her fingers digging into her skin as she began to panic. He was pulling away, and she didn't know if she could stop him. "Max, please… Nothing is going to happen to me."

Max yanked his arm out of her grasp. "I think you should go," he said, and he walked away from her towards the cave entrance. He paused in front of the stone wall and waved his hand over the spot where the handprint was, watching as it slowly opened. He stepped into the cool darkness of the cave and glanced over his shoulder, staring at Liz.

Liz looked at him, and then the cave door slid shut, leaving her standing alone in the desert, separated from Max by an unsurpassable stone wall.

Inside the cave, Max walked towards the pods. He could see the four of them, empty shell casings that had once housed him and his family. He saw a flash, a burst of images playing against his eyes. A small Isabel clambering from the pod chamber, Michael rushing ahead into the desert, and Max, lingering behind, staring at the pod that still held Tess.

"Why?" Max demanded, throwing his hands out and blasting the pods, causing the entire room to shake. "Why would you do this to me? To us?" They'd left four clueless teenagers alone on a planet where their very existence was enough reason for secret organizations to want to kill them. Four teenagers who had the fate of another planet in their hands. How could they actually be expected to do anything?

The energy was flying from his hands, blasting through the air and crackling with electric power. The pods began to creak and tear, twisting as he viciously attacked with all his fury. When his anger finally drained away, and all that was left was hopelessness and despair, the hybrid king sank to his knees and held his head in his hands.

And then he heard it. The humming in the air, like glowing neon lights. He climbed slowly to his feet and inched forwards, towards the pods. The humming got louder, and behind the partially destroyed mesh of membranes, he could see something faintly glowing. He pressed forward, shoving the remains of the pods out of his way, crawling into another room, hidden in the depths of the cave.

It was larger than the first room, both his height and width. And in the center of it was a cone, glowing with an eerie blue light, and emitting energy and power that flowed through the air. The base was settled on a metal disk which was engraved with carvings of strange symbols. At the very tip of the cone, the strange, glowing material was etched with a symbol Max knew all too well.

The Four Square.

And as he stared at the strange contraption, one thought came to mind.

"The Granolith."

* * *

Next Chapter: This Brilliant Dance

Due: Sun 11/25


	101. This Brilliant Dance

Title: This Brilliant Dance

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: Sorry to make you all wait so long, but since this is the final chapter in this story, I rewrote it several times to get it just the way I wanted… Anyway, there is an author's note at the end of the chapter that you should all probably read.

The song lyrics at the beginning and end of the chapter are from _This Brilliant Dance_ by Dashboard Confessionals.

* * *

Chapter One Hundred: This Brilliant Dance  
**_  
And breathing is a foreign task  
And thinking is just too much to ask  
And you're measuring your minutes by a clock that's blinking eights._**

"It's humming," Isabel whispered, reaching out tentatively and placing her fingers on the smooth surface of the Granolith. The blue material seemed to ripple underneath her fingers, and she jerked her hand back, awestruck.

Michael placed the two orbs and the Destiny Book near the back of the chamber and then joined the others around the Granolith. He kept glancing over at Max, trying to read his expression. They'd climbed through the mangled remains of the pods to get into this room, and he couldn't help but wonder why exactly Max had submitted the membranous material to his wrath.

Tess glanced over at Michael. He was still holding the strange black device they had taken from Pierce. She flinched as a memory of the white room washed through her mind, and looked away sharply.

Isabel, catching sight of Tess' movements, frowned at Michael and asked, "Why do you still have that? We can store it with the orbs and the Book."

But Michael wordlessly pointed to an engraving at the base of the Granolith. Carved into the metal was an indentation in the same pentagon shape. It seemed to match exactly in size the black device in Michael's hand.

"What do you think it does?" Tess asked, curiosity overcoming her fears. "And if it belongs here, how did Pierce get it?"

"Maybe when our spaceship crashed, it was thrown from the ship. The agents at the scene might have found it," Michael hypothesized. He shot a quick look at Tess and asked, "Pierce did say it was found at the crash site, right?"

Tess nodded, wincing as the movement caused a jolt of pain to rise up her neck and into the base of her head. She rubbed her neck absently, still staring at the Granolith.

"Nasedo said that the Granolith was powerful. He said it is what our enemies are looking for," Max mused, his eyes moving from the black device in Michael's hand to the blue cone at the top of the Granolith. "I wonder why it is so important."

"I can feel its power," Michael answered. "I can feel… a pull to it."

"What do we do about that?" Isabel asked, pointing to the pentagon-shaped object Michael was still holding. "Do we see what happens if we put it on the Granolith?"

"We need to be careful," Michael cautioned. "We don't know what it does, and…" He didn't need to finish the sentence, they all knew what he was thinking. They really couldn't afford any more problems right now, not after having barely survived the last two days.

Max thought idly to himself that it was a strange role-reversal for Isabel to be the one suggesting something reckless and Michael to be the one preaching prudence. But he agreed more with Isabel, he was curious to see what this device did. It was as though the Granolith had a hold on him, over-riding his better judgment and feeding his inquisitiveness.

"It is important to know what the Granolith does," Tess muttered. "Especially if others are after it." She sat back down on the hard dirt floor, moving slightly away from the cone in the center of the room. Her thoughts were still on Kyle, and she wondered how he was coping with the mind-warp. He had seemed fine after she modified his memory, and she knew that no damage had been done to his mind, but…

"Was there anything in the book about it?" Max asked suddenly, glancing at Michael.

The hybrid General blinked for a moment, then asked, "You mean that Destiny Book?" When Max nodded, he frowned and said pointedly, "That book is in another language, Maxwell. One that none of us can read."

Max rolled his eyes and rose to his feet. "I know that," he said. "I meant where there any drawings or anything?" When Michael didn't answer, he walked over to the Destiny Book and lifted it, flipping over the metallic cover and turning through the pages.

"Find anything?"

Max sighed. "On the second to last page, there is a sketch that looks like the Granolith… sort of." He showed it to the others, and they all nodded. It was an etching of the Granolith at the bottom of the page, and above it was an inverted pyramid that rose from the center of the cone all the way to the top of the page.

Isabel took the Book from Max's hand. She stared at the picture, then said, "The device Michael is holding is like an ignition. You attack it, and then there is something else that works as a key… A crystal, maybe? Something like that…"

"How do you know this?" Tess asked skeptically, giving Isabel a confused look.

Isabel blinked and put down the Book. "I… I don't know. It just… came to me when I looked at the drawing." She gave a half-shrug and looked over at Michael. "I guess that means we can put that thing into the Granolith. Without the key-object, nothing will happen."

Michael raised an eyebrow and said, "We're basing this all on a random feeling that Izzy had?" Isabel glared at him, and he explained quickly, "I'm not saying that she isn't right. It's just… how do we know that this device won't do something on its own? How do we know Isabel's feelings were complete?"

"We don't," Tess agreed slowly. "We don't know much of anything about this right now."

"Maybe this will give us answers," Max suggested.

Michael hesitated, then muttered under his breath, "But it won't undo the past." Fortunately, Max didn't hear him, but Isabel did, and she gave him a sharp look. Although Michael had a point, that they shouldn't rush into anything as a way of distracting themselves from what had happened, he shouldn't risk saying something like that in front of Max. The last thing the hybrid King needed right now was a reminder of Pierce's untimely demise.

Tess winced again, this time from a sore ache that was spreading through her shoulders. She felt Max's piercing gaze on her, but did not meet his eyes.

Michael sighed. He didn't really know what to do at the moment, and judging by the fact that none of the others had made any emphatic pleas for one course of action over another, he could assume that they didn't either.

He crouched down, holding the black pentagon a few centimeters over the carving in the base of the Granolith. Ever so slowly, he pushed it forward, feeling a sudden shock of electricity rushing up his arm as the two materials made contact. The black pentagon began to pulse in his hand, then it fused with the metal of the Granolith's base, creating a seamless surface. The bulbs around the side began to flash, and the pentagon center started to glow an eerie red.

Then there was a burst of white light, leaving the Granolith and flooding the room, passing through the four teenage aliens. It faded away almost as soon as it had come, leaving a dead silence in its wake.

Tess rubbed her eyes and glanced around. Max and Isabel both looked shocked, and Michael was turning his head in all directions, as though expecting something else to happen. But the white light had not appeared to activate any strange chain of events.

Isabel glanced at the black pentagon. The bulbs on the outside where no longer flashing, and the rounded center pulsed a dull blue light until it finally faded away as well.

"That was… odd," Max said into the silence.

Somewhere far away from them all, a signal was being received, and the fate of two planets and four hybrids was about to be irrevocably altered.

* * *

School the next day seemed to be a strange and hazy dream. Tess walked through it, almost entirely unaware of what was happening around her. The sun was shinning, the cloudless blue sky stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction, the students buzzed around her with energy and excitement knowing that the school year was almost at a close. But she was oblivious to it all.

In the hallway, she held her books tightly against her chest and watched as Jessica and Trudy chatted easily about some new movie that they had seen. Kyle passed her and gave a smile and a nod, an indication that he had no memory of anything that had happened.

Isabel approached her quietly, pausing in front of Tess and giving her a searching look. "How are you doing?" she asked in an undertone.

Tess looked at Isabel. "How do you think?" she snapped irritably before turning away.

"I was just asking," Isabel said defensively, holding her hands up in surrender. "I didn't mean to intrude…"

Tess huffed and said, "Of course you meant to intrude." She looked over her shoulder, glaring at Isabel. "I don't want to talk about it," she hissed in a low tone. "Not to Max, not to Michael, and not to you."

"Hey," Chris called, appearing at the end of the hallway and walking swiftly towards Tess. "How are you? I tried to call you think weekend, but you didn't answer your phone."

"I've been busy," Tess retorted. "Why does everyone want to know where I was?"

Chris shot a look at Trudy, who titled her head to the side and said in an undertone, "She's in a bad mood."

"I'd be in a much better move if everyone just left me alone," Tess muttered, running a hand through her hair and letting out a shaky breath. She stalked away, leaving Chris to stare after her in concern and bewilderment.

"She was fine when I spoke to her last week," Chris said, unable to understand what had caused the rapid change in his girlfriend.

"She does that sometimes," Jessica commented. "Mood swings… you get used to it."

Chris looked as though there was something he wanted to say, but in the end he simply shook his head and walked away. Trudy watched him go, then slanted a look at Isabel, silently questioning her. Isabel stared back, her face a picture of blank innocence.

"Tess might have mood swings," Trudy murmured, "but she is rarely as mean as she's been today. Something must have happened. She almost made a freshman cry!"

Isabel crossed her arms over her chest and didn't say anything. Her family was falling apart, and she had absolutely no idea how to fix it.

* * *

"Max broke up with you?" Maria whispered, pulling Liz away from the crowd of student around her locker. "Why?"

"He says he's not safe to be around," Liz replied, wiping away the tears that pooled in her eyes as she thought about her last conversation with her now ex-boyfriend. "I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't listen to anything I said. He… he just left."

"Lizzie, he needs some time, but he'll be coming back to you soon," Maria said firmly, confidently. "He'll be begging you to take him back soon."

"That's not enough," Liz protested feebly, walking towards the far doors. "I should be there with him, helping him through this."

"I don't know if you can help him," Maria answered, hurrying after her friend to keep up. They passed through the doors, blinking in the bright sunlight, and she added, "This might be one of those things he needs to figure out for himself."

"He shouldn't have to go through this alone!" Liz cried, sitting down on one of the steps and burring her head in her hands. They were relatively alone, the rest of the student body having not left the school yet. Maria took a seat next to her best friend and wrapped her arms around her.

"Do you want me to talk to him?" she offered.

Liz laughed bitterly and shook her head. "He wouldn't listen," she said. She looked out across the quad. The air was shimmering in the heat, and she was suddenly too exhausted to even think straight about this entire mess. She had originally thought that they were lucky to escape it alive, but it was becoming more and more evident that they hadn't made it through the fire all in one piece. Max had crumbled to pieces in front of her, Isabel felt helpless to do anything, Tess was withdrawing more and more, and Michael was left trying to hold everything together.

"You can't give up, Liz," Maria argued. "You can't just let him walk away."

"It's what he wants," Liz said coldly, angrily.

"It's what he thinks he wants," Maria countered. "He doesn't know what he really wants."

"Maybe not," Liz conceded, "but he knows what he _doesn't_ want. He doesn't want me."

"He doesn't want you to get hurt," Maria said. "And can you blame him? He loves you, of course he wants to protect you."

"But who's protecting him?" Liz wondered.

* * *

Alex fell into step beside Isabel as she walked across the parking lot towards her car. "How are you?" he asked sympathetically, giving her a quick once-over, noting the drawn expression on her face and the circles under her eyes.

"Not great," Isabel admitted quietly. "Max and Tess are…" She shrugged and took a slow breath. "They've completely fallen apart and I can't… I should be able to fix it, but I can't do anything. And my parents were so… when we talked to them they looked so… betrayed. I hate this. I hate being helpless. I hate not being able to do anything when people I love are hurt."

Alex reached out and took her hand. The two of them stopped in the middle of the parking lot, looking into each other's eyes. "The most you can do," Alex said, "is just be there for them."

"I think if I try to offer Tess any more comfort or help, she might actually kill me," Isabel said, reflecting on Tess' rapidly worsening disposition.

"So don't offer her anything," Alex said. "Just let her be angry and moody and whatever else she is, but don't let her do it alone. Sit in silence next to her if you have to, just make sure she knows that you are not going anywhere. Same with Max. He might think he can push Liz away, but he needs to know that you aren't going to leave him, no matter what."

"Hmm…" Isabel sighed with a soft smile, "when did you become so wise?"

"It's a gift," Alex answered with a grin.

"Maybe you are the one who should talk to Tess and Max," Isabel said. "And Liz, because I don't think she is handling Max's rejection all that well."

"I'll talk to Liz," Alex agreed, "but you're the one who needs to help the other two."

"Right," Isabel groaned. "Just what I want to do right now…" She bit her lip, then, acting on impulse, she leaned forward until her lips met Alex's. It took him a moment to realize what she was doing, and when he did, he responded to the kiss. Then, slowly, she drew back and looked at him.

Alex had blushed bright red. "Uh…"

"I…" Isabel looked uncomfortable. She had no idea why she had done that or what it meant.

"So…"

The two stared at each other, suddenly unsure, awkward, and uncomfortable.

* * *

Michael was half-way to the door of his apartment when the phone rang. He glanced behind him with annoyance, hurrying back and pulling the phone from the holder. "Hello?" he said, somewhat more sharply than he intended.

"The doctor's wife leaked the story. I was called into a closed session with the Senate this morning. The plan is underway." Nasedo's voice, raspy and filled with static, echoed through the phone lines.

"They think you are crazy?" Michael demanded, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Paranoid and delusional," Nasedo said. "I'll keep you updated as the investigation continues. In the meantime, keep your eyes and ears open for anything suspicious, though I doubt you will have any more problems."

Michael wasn't entirely sure he believed that. They always had problems. But he agreed readily enough with Nasedo's instructions to stay alert. "Okay," he said. "Should I tell Max you'll be calling him?"

Nasedo gave a snort and said, "I'll be calling _you_, Michael."

"But Max is the leader," Michael argued, confused. "He's the king."

"And he is currently too caught up in his own problems to lead anyone," Nasedo countered. "You are the Second-in-Command. It is your job to lead if the king is unable to fulfill his duty."

Michael swallowed. It was the first time anyone had so blatantly laid that much responsibility on his shoulders. "I don't know…"

"You do not have a choice," Nasedo rebuked. "It is who you are. This is your burden now, until Max had chased away his inner demons. Be careful, it is not an easy cross to bear." And then he hung up.

Michael replaced the phone.

**_

* * *

_**

"You broke up with Liz."

Max turned and looked over his shoulder at the blonde hybrid. He hadn't heard Tess' approach, but there she was, standing only a few feet behind him. Max felt almost annoyed at her presence. He had come to this bench to be alone. The park was empty at night, and he preferred it that way.

"Yes, I did," he replied. It hadn't really been a question, but for some reason he felt the need to say it, as though he had to defend his position.

Tess took a few steps forward and sat down next to him on the bench. She stared at him, wrapping her arms around her chest and hugging her sweatshirt tighter to her body. The air was cool and damp, and the night sky twinkled with the light of a thousand different stars.

"I killed Pierce," Max muttered. "I _killed_…" He was a healer, he wasn't supposed to kill people. He was supposed to save them, that was what he did.

"Yes, you did," Tess agreed. There really wasn't anything else she could say. He _had_ killed Pierce, denying it would be useless. And as she was sure that Liz, Isabel, and Michael had all already told Max that he only did what was necessary, repeating that line of argument would be pointless.

Max's lips thinned into a straight line and his eyes took on a haunted and shadowed quality. His eyebrows knitted together in an unreadable frown, but he was silent.

"I thought you were grounded?"

"I am," Max answered. "I snuck out the window."

Tess raised one eyebrow and said sarcastically, "That's going to make your parents trust you more."

"Tess, just shut up," Max said wearily, too tired to fight.

"Do you want me to leave?" Tess asked. She didn't really want to stay and talk to him. There was nothing to say right now, nothing between them but the empty and awkward silence. And why would he want her to stay anyway? It wasn't like she had anything to offer him. There was nothing she could do for him, no reason to stay here.

But once in a while, Max still managed to surprise her.

"No."

She wondered if he had surprised himself with that answer as well.

"Are you…" Max started, but Tess cut him off.

"I will inflict unbearable pain on the next person who asks me if I am okay," she snapped. It was a stupid question. Of course she wasn't okay, how could she be? But unless they had a way to erase the past, no one was actually going to be able to help. She didn't have the luxury of being able to speak openly about any of her problems with anyone not in the group, and she had no desire to talk to any of them about her feelings. And until they were all assured of being safe, she couldn't waste time focusing on the past. They needed to be prepared for the future.

Max pointed at one of the stars and suddenly asked, "Do you see that star? The bright one that wobbles slightly?"

Tess glanced up and nodded. "The North Star," she murmured. "It stays in the same place as the others stars rotate around it."

"Do you think we can see it from Antar?" Max questioned. He watched the star for a moment, then looked over at Tess. She was staring at him, her eyes wide, but he couldn't read the expression on her face.

"Maybe," Tess replied finally. "I don't know."

There was nothing more either could say, and so they sat in silence, both staring off into the dark night that surrounded them and contemplating the unknown future that lay ahead.

* * *

Michael knocked at Maria's window. She came to the glass, surprise evident on her face, then pulled the latch up and let him inside.

"You're right," Michael said hurriedly, his words coming out in a rush. Maria opened her mouth to ask him what he was talking about, but he gestured for her to remain quiet and hurried on with his jumbled speech. "I have to lead the group, I have to… save us. Max is too… I just… it's me. I have to do it, and I can't do that and be with you also."

Maria walked back to her bed, sinking onto the cushions. She hadn't wanted to hear him say those words, even though she knew they were true. She was the one who had initiated this break, so could she really blame him for recognizing what she had already accepted as fact?

"But I don't want…" Michael stopped, took a breath, and started again. "Maria, I love you. And I don't want this to end just because of other problems. I… I just want…" Again, he stopped, unable to put his thoughts into words.

"Michael…"

"No, don't," Michael said quickly. "I'm not good with words or flowery phrases. I can't… I can't express my feelings in a poem or whatever. I'm not… well, I'm not Max. I'm not good at this talking, but I… I _need_ to say this. So just… hear me out, okay?"

"Okay," Maria whispered.

"You drive me insane. You're controlling and picky and… so incredibly frustrating. I swear half the time I want to kill you, but I… I love you. Nothing makes sense right now, except you. Everything else in my life has turned upside-down and inside-out. Everything else is so wrong, but not you. You… I just… I love you."

"I love you, too," Maria murmured.

Michael walked over to the bed and knelt in front of her. "When Max and Liz kiss, they see flashes. Liz sees Max's past, who he is. I… when we kiss, you don't see that."

"It doesn't matter if I see flashes or not," Maria said quickly.

"But it does matter. I… You don't see them because I don't let you. I didn't want you to… to see who I was. But I… I do now." He leaned forward, placing a hand on Maria's face, and kissed her.

_Lights. A desert. Blackness. Fear. Hope. A little boy and a little girl, holding hands, staring at him. School, kids giving him strange looks. A little blonde haired girl introducing herself. Recognition. Hope. Fear. Blackness. A desert. Light._

"Oh…_God_, Michael," Maria breathed as the images and feelings rushed through her mind, bringing her closer to the taciturn hybrid in that one moment than she had been at any other point during the year.

Michael pulled back. "Good bye," he whispered, then he straightened, crossed to the window, and climbed back out into the night.

* * *

The man touched the screen of the small device, watching the lights that swirled around, finally forming into a V. A small smirk turned up the corners of his lips, gloating laughter sprung into his eyes. They had been searching for over fifty years. Fifty long, tiring years, that yielded little clues and even less hope. But now…

Now that search was finally over.

He pressed his thumb against the locator button on the device, watched the map of New Mexico appeared on the screen, noted the presence of the tiny blinking dot of light, the location of the Granolith. A single triumphant word slipped through his parted lips.

"Gotcha."

**_So this is strange,  
Our sidestepping has come to be a brilliant dance  
Where nobody leads at all,  
Where nobody leads at all._**

* * *

Author's note (part 1): In case it isn't clear, the indicator light in the final section was activated by the white light that was released when the black pentagon-shaped "ignition" was inserted into the Granolith.

Author's note (part 2): Yes, this is officially the end of This Brilliant Dance and I thank you all for bearing with me through my incredibly long retelling.

Author's note (part 3) IMPORTANT: There will be a sequel. It will be a retelling of Season Two, and it will be called Time After Time. The first chapter should be up in the beginning of 2008, but I do need to take the rest of the month to focus on my other non-Roswell stories. The sequel will focus on the appearance of the skins and any loose ends in this story. It will answer the questions…

Will Max ever get over having killed Pierce? Will he learn to lead the group again? Any why couldn't he heal Sydney? (Or, better yet, why was he able to heal Liz?)

Will Michael continue to lead the group while Max is struggling with his own problems? Will he do it successfully? Can he bear the burdens of leadership?

Will Isabel and Max regain their parents' trust?

Will Tess get over the White Room, or will her fury and pain consume her?

Will Kyle break out of his mind-warp? Will Jim truly forgive Tess for everything she has done?

Will anyone discover the truth about Nasedo and his role in the kidnapping of Maria?

What will happen when the skins come to Roswell?

What will happen with Max and Liz? Michael and Maria? Alex and Isabel? Tess and Chris? Jim and Amy?

So for anyone interested in sticking with me through another really long, rambling story, look for the first chapter of _Time After Time_ during the first week of January.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all my wonderful readers and reviewers.


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